Saturday, May 8, 2021
3:00 – 6:00 PM US Central Time [1:00 – 4:00 PM Pacific]
The Center for Railroad Photography & Art invites our members to participate in a special premiere of the film Celestials, hosted by the Chinese Historical Society of America on Saturday, May 8th, 2021 via Zoom.
During the late 19th century, the term ‘celestial’ was a pejorative used to insult Chinese immigrants and laborers. Ironically, while there was discrimination towards Chinese workers in the United States, American developers depended heavily upon the work of Chinese immigrants, particularly when it came to the building of the transcontinental railroad.
The documentary film Celestials showcases six years of collaboration between Stanford University and the Chinese Historical Society of America to explore the lives of the Chinese railroad workers who built the transcontinental railroad.
The film explores the links between the Chinese workers and their ancestral homes in Kaiping, China through groundbreaking archaeological research. It paints a composite portrait of workers through oral histories collected from their descendants. And it examines the 150-year struggle for Chinese Americans to obtain national recognition for their contributions to American history.
CHSA invites CRP&A supporters for a screening of Celestials, followed by a panel discussion with Stanford Professor of Archaeology Barbara Voss, Award-Winning Local Historian Connie Young Yu, and Director and Producer, and past Conversations conference presenter, Barre Fong.
