It’s been a busy month for local genealogist Grant Din. In addition
to the usual flurry of events marking Asian Pacific American Heritage Month,
this year marked the 150th anniversary of theTranscontinental Railroad—a monumental undertaking built largely by Chinese
laborers. Din was among those who gathered in Promontory, Utah, on May 10 for
the sesquicentennial celebration. “It was just exciting to be a part of it,” he
said.
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| Grant Din |
Din joined others of Chinese descent for a group photograph at the site where a ceremonial golden spike marked the joining of
the Central and Union Pacific railroads on May 10, 1869. It was part of a
years-long movement of Asian Americans reclaiming their history. In the official photos taken at Promontory Point on May 10,
1869, Chinese faces are nowhere to be seen. The Chinese contributions were also
dismissed at the 100th anniversary celebration in 1969. At that
event, Philip Choy, president of the Chinese Historical Society, was bumped
from the official festivities by the arrival of a surprise guest, John Wayne;
and U. S. Secretary of Transportation John Volpe lauded the building of the
railroad with these words: “Who else but Americans could chisel through miles
of solid granite?” This year, the Transportation Secretary was Elaine Chao and
featured speakers included Bay Area historian Connie Young Yu, who proclaimed, “I am a
descendant of a Chinese railroad worker, an American, speaking about American
history.”
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| Grant Din (far right by post) and others at the 150th anniversary celebration of the Transcontinental Railroad. Chang W. Lee/The New York Times |
Uncovering the hidden past is a slow and ongoing process,
but that’s the nature of genealogy and history. Din, who formerly worked as community resources director for
the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, is an experienced genealogist
whose specialties include research into “paper sons” and “paper daughters,”
Chinese who came to America under assumed names and
identities: it was the only way to get around the restrictive
immigration policy dictated by the Chinese Exclusion Act, which held sway from
1882 until World War II.
Din’s detective skills led to recent work as a consultant
for “The Six,” a documentary about six Chinese workers
who survived the 1912 Titanic disaster. The film by Arthur Jones and Steven Schwankert, currently in
production, looks into the fate of six Chinese workers who survived the 1912 Titanic disaster. All were experienced
seamen. When they booked steerage class on the ill-fated ocean liner they were
on their way to meet another ship, the Annetta,
which would carry them to the Caribbean to work on fruit ships. Eight Chinese
nationals boarded the Titanic in
April 1912. Two of them, Len Lam and Lee Ling, are thought to have perished
along with more than 1,500 other victims lost after the ship hit an iceberg and
sank. The other six made it out alive. But instead of being brought ashore and
sheltered at New York with other survivors, they were promptly transferred to the Annetta,
which departed within 24 hours. What little mention they received in the New
York press was derogatory; it was widely reported that the men had dressed as
women, pushed children aside, or hidden like stowaways in order to get on the
lifeboats—all completely false allegations. And then the trail goes cold.
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| "The Six" (Facebook) |
“They couldn’t enter the U.S. because of the Chinese
Exclusion Act,” said Din. “And because of the Exclusion Act, no one wanted to
talk about it.” The filmmakers found one man from the
Midwest who was told after his
father’s death that his father had been on the Titanic. Din and other
researchers followed obscure clues, making their way through a web of different
names and changing identities to try to determine if
this story was true, and to bring the survivors’ stories to light and to
find their descendants. The crew of international researchers shared information
via Skype, at one point conferring weekly. The project, Din said, was “probably
the most fun I’ve had in genealogical work besides my own family.” And with the
stories they uncovered and the family connections forged by the researchers, a
bit more human history comes to light.
To view a trailer for "The Six," click here.
Copyright © 2019 by California Genealogical Society
