Pressure started building in 1875, when the miners went on strike, protesting wages and working conditions. Union Pacific officials responded by replacing them with Chinese laborers. Over the years, as Chinese immigration increased, resentment and hostility grew among white workers. Ten years later, everything boiled over into a massacre that historians and archeologists are still working to understand. This chapter in history challenges us to reflect on the deep roots of prejudice and violence — and how those shadows persist in our world today.
GUEST —
Michael Luo | Executive editor for The New Yorker. His new book is “Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America.” [Amazon |Bookshop]. You can read an article drawn from that book here.
Airdate: Wed. March 19, 2025 at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.