After reading Gaiutra Bahadur’s piece on her search for her great grandmother’s history, it was evident that learning about these roots would be an obstacle riddled mission. Upon the analyzation of Bahadur’s process of retracing these steps, I gained an understanding of just how difficult it is to find these answers without information. Much of these historical recordings are biased and written by white, racist, sexist men who control these women. At this point, it has become undoubtedly clear that not even official records can be 100% trusted by POC. Official historic archives are limited. Majority of these delicate sheets of memory are lost through time. Bahadur’s process has yet again found itself in a new predicament yet she triumphs over this issue with determination and some might even say, creativity. She addresses this problem by looking towards unofficial records like photographs, folk songs, oral histories and colonial era postcards to piece together the puzzle that is her family’s history. A construction of my family’s historic archive would include birth certificates, passports, doctor’s appointment, high school and college diplomas, photos, and a lot of oral history from a primary source. In my personal opinion, it is crucial to understand a person in order to understand their choices. Primary sources are important because they have come in contact with that specific person and can arguably convey that person’s journey better than any biased piece of paper. I would also look into Spain and Japan’s archives because I know my family had strong roots from both when the Philippines were under their jurisdiction.
Connie Young Yu is born in Los Angeles California to parents, John and Mary Young. Her great grandfather, Lee Wong Sang was a foreman for the central pacific railroad. Yu attended Mills College in pursuit of being a friction novelist when she decided to volunteer and contribute a piece to the Chinese Historical Society. She wrote about the Chinese pioneers of the great Chinese railroad and found her passion for non-friction writing. In her research through historic archives from Stanford, she discovered many useful quotes and recordings about the mistreatment towards the Chinese and the success of the railroads as a result of Chinese labor. She then goes in detail about her great grandfather’s journey as a Chinese laborer. She talked about his hardships as an immigrant Chinese laborer working on a dollar a day salary while supporting an entire family in China. Lee Wong Sang fortunately has a graceful ending. Yu’s great grandfather flew back and forth to China and America, after he sent his children to America, he finally settled down and built a house in China where he died of old age with his wife and childhood sweetheart. This interview confirmed the ideas I’ve had about Chinese railroad laborers. They were hardworking people willing to look past the discrimination and mistreatments for family and legacy. There wasn’t much missing from this interview. In my opinion Connie Young Yu did an amazing job with extensive research about her family’s history with the Chinese railroad. It was amazing to see how far they’ve come in terms of academic achievements and success.
Hey Danielle,
I agree with you that most historical records are biased since “History is written by the victors and these victors have always been white, racist, sexist men who control women and POC. Her creativity like you stated did help and I believe it to be key since her family is not the victor, yet we still have to hear their side since the story is unfortunately one-sided. An interesting point you brought up that I didn’t think about is specifically looking into the archives of whichever country took over the specific region of the Phillippines your family is from since I don’t even know what country took over the region of the Phillippines my family is from. Having left the Phillippines at six years old to move to America, all I read about our country is that we were conquered by both Spain and America so I’ve always had a general knowledge but never too specific.
Seeing what you wrote for Ms. Yu, this reaffirms my idea of the hardships that many Chinese Railroad workers faced in order to help build this country but more importantly to help provide for their family while facing racism and discrimination towards them. One thing that I didn’t even know about was that they got paid only one dollar per day while supporting their family. It’s such a baffling idea for me to think about in today’s term since my parents do the same but there are laws in place to prevent workers from only getting paid one dollar.
I agree with you on how a lot of history is often rewritten in order to make those in power look better, and often those in power are rich, white men. This is as an attempt to silence poc and the struggles they face, and to make those in power look like their saviors. For that reason it’s often difficult for poc to learn about their own history as it is usually written from a biased pov.
Great discussion, Danielle. I appreciate your comment that you need to understand a person to understand their choices + your thoughtfulness regarding the kinds of sources that would help to construct the personal archive. I would add that it’s also important to understand the social and political and economic context that someone lives in as this also shapes their choices. We will be doing some of this together over the semester– putting our individual stories within a larger context to learn more about what choices we are able to make.