Grade 5-9-More than the story of Chinese workers' contributions to building the transcontinental railroad, this book is also a brief history of China's contacts with the West, focusing on the financial despair that drove many men to emigrate, beginning in the 1840s. The anti-Chinese sentiment that rose in California after their success in the gold rush is discussed, as is life in the Chinatowns that were established. The chapters devoted to the Central Pacific's construction of the transcontinental railroad stress the dangerous, grueling conditions that the Chinese workers endured and the lack of recognition they received in the celebration at Promontory Summit in Utah when their line joined the Union Pacific. The lives of the workers following the railroad's completion, when the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, are discussed in the final chapters.
