AMC Drama Hell on Wheels "Excises" Chinese from Railroad History

[Kim]

source (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tv-column/post/summer-tv-press-tour-2011-execs-explain-casting-choices-on-hell-on-wheels/2011/07/28/gIQA2mSifI_blog.html)

Right off the bat, the press wanted to know why there are no Chinese immigrant characters in the series given that Chinese labor played a big role in the construction of the cross-country railroad.A fairly reasonable question, I'm sure we'd all agree.

“I predicted this is probably going to be the first question we were going to be asked,” creator Joe Gayton said proudly. “And probably rightfully so,” he added graciously, “because I think what a lot of people think of when they think about the Transcontinental Railroad is the contribution of the Chinese immigrants.”

But, he explained, “One of the things that really caught me is, just, it’s just so American, the idea of a tent city that packs up and moves, you know. And it’s violent, and it’s given to vice and gambling, but there’s churches there. And there was just something about that that caught me and Joe, and I think that’s probably the reason,” he said.

This cleared things up not-at-all. So, they start things off with, "We didn't have Chinese immigrants in this because it's just so American."

WOW.

“And just, budget-wise and time-wise…we could really only concentrate on one side of [the railroad building], and that’s probably why we, you know, that’s why we chose the [emanating from the East Coast] Union Pacific as opposed to the [emanating from the West Coast] Central Pacific.”

Now clear as mud.This is complete bullshit. I don't buy it for a second.

“The genesis of the railroad started in the East,” said Tony Gayton, taking a whack at the question which, to refresh your memory as we travel further and further down the Gayton Family Rabbit Hole, was “Why no Chinese characters?”

“ It was Abraham Lincoln’s idea, and we’ve likened it to JFK, you know, saying, ‘We are going to make the we are going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade’,” Tony Gayton prattled on merrily.

“And it was very similar. So it just seemed a good starting point.”It just keeps going downhill and making less and less sense.

But, he promised, “The Central Pacific will be a hint in the show. I mean, we will know that they are out there, building.”

“Having said that, we did write the Central Pacific into the pilot,” Joe Gayton jumped back in, sensing the explanation was not going over as well as might be hoped.

“And people asked us if we were insane, if we were trying to get both of the stories -- service both of the stories -- in a one-hour pilot. So they ended up getting excised.”

And there you have you answer, at long last: The Chinese characters? They got “excised.”And this is all that really needs to be said on the matter.

[Krylo]

Dude should quit doing entertainment and enter politics.

He's got the 'use a lot of words to answer absolutely nothing about the original question' part down pat. And that's really the hardest part.

[Aerozord]

I wonder if the real reason is "because we were dicks to Chinese immigrants" and they didn't want to deal with the outcry by one group or the other. They do it too lightly and people will say they are underscoring the trials of the Chinese, do a realistic and you will get "more liberal propaganda" or some other non-sense.

Or maybe its just usual hollywood white-washing

[Professor Smarmiarty]

It's pretty much no more bullshit than the rest of popular history.

[Magus]

Uh, pretty sure Chinese workers would be a non-issue for where this is set, since the series deals directly with the eastern construction of the Union Pacific which depended on Irish and Confederate and Union veterans. I have read the script and the main characters are an ex-Confederate soldier out for revenge and a former slave, and a railroad baron who is probably the antagonist.

Here is something somewhat illuminating (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Transcontinental_Railroad#Laborers):

Laborers

The majority of the Union Pacific track was built by Irish laborers[17], and veterans of both the Union and Confederate armies. Brigham Young, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wished to see the railroad support emigration and the population centers in Ogden and Salt Lake City, Utah. As the track approached Utah Territory, he sought a labor contract with the Union Pacific. Under this completed contract, workgangs made up almost entirely of Mormons built much of the Union Pacific track in the Utah territory including the difficult section requiring extensive blasting and tunneling through the Weber River canyon. (Allen and Leonard, pp. 328–329)

The Central Pacific's grade was constructed primarily by many thousands of emigrant workers from China who were commonly referred to at the time as "Celestials" and China as the "Celestial Kingdom." Even though at first they were thought to be too weak or fragile to do this type of work, after the first few days on which Chinese were on the line, the decision was made to hire as many as could be found in California (where most were independent gold miners or in service industries such as laundries and kitchens). Many more were imported from China. Most of the men received between one and three dollars per day, but the workers arriving directly from China received much less. Eventually, they went on strike and gained a small increase in salary.

Most of the work consisted of the laying of the rails. The track laying was divided up into various parts: one gang laid rails on the ties, drove the spikes, and bolted the splice bars; at the same time, another gang distributed telegraph poles and wire along the grade, while the cooks prepared dinner and the clerks busied themselves with accounts, records, using telegraph wire to tap for more materials and supplies.[18] Almost all of the track work was done manually, using shovels, picks, axes, black powder, two-wheeled dump carts, wheelbarrows, ropes, mules, and horses,[19] while supply trains carried all the necessary material for the construction, which consisted of “ties, rails, spikes, bolts, telegraph poles, wire, etc.”[18]

In addition to track laying (which typically employed approximately 25% of the labor force), the operation also required the efforts of hundreds of tunnelers, explosive experts, bridge builders, blacksmiths, carpenters, engineers, masons, surveyors, teamsters, telegraphers, and even cooks, to name just a few of the trades involved in construction of the railroad.

Upon the completion of their work on the CPRR's portion of the Pacific Railroad, many Chinese workers moved on to other railroad construction jobs including with the Central Pacific. Of those that left the company's employ, some returned with their savings to their families in Canton while others sent to China for wives and settled in various western communities as miners, laundrymen, and restaurateurs. The majority who remained in the United States, however, returned to and settled in the San Francisco Bay area and elsewhere along the Pacific coast.[20]

So basically half was built by Caucasian minorities like the Irish or Mormons, the other half was built by the Chinese. I'm not sure why that fellow felt he had to go on and on and talk in circles instead of just pointing out that they decided to deal with the Union Pacific bit instead of the Central Pacific bit, and in fact it's taking place way east in the first episode, which is only an hour long. Perhaps it was so unexpected for everybody to be like "YOU ARE SO RACIST FOR THIS NOT TO FOCUS ON CHINESE IMMIGRANTS EVEN THOUGH YOU WROTE A SCRIPT WITH CHARACTERS IN AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION" in this article given that premise.

I mean, perhaps he purposefully set out to not to include anything about the Chinese, but being as how they wrote a pretty standard Western-type TV show (it's actually pretty dull and predictable revenge plot) and it takes place in the southeast seems to be a better reason for why they cut out the Central Pacific part than that he hates Chinese people. I have to admit, I haven't read more than the pilot script, so maybe later on the characters get to California and there still aren't any Chinese characters, I dunno.

Also, later, they will have to deal with Native Americans, killing all the buffalo, etc. There's a lot to cover just with the Union Pacific.

I just can't see why a racist would waste their time writing Central Pacific plotlines into the show knowing full well ahead of time that they will purposefully excise them later, because they are secretly racist, or why if you choose Union Pacific over Central Pacific when it comes down to crunch time that this is an inherently racist decision.

EDIT: Just now reading, the article, not sure why the original question isn't in the first post but here it is:

More accurately, the question put to the show’s creators, Joe and Tony Gayton, was: “I’m like, ‘Where are the Chinese?… I mean, it was a major part of the thing!”