For over a hundred and sixty years, Chinese had traveled across the ocean to help open up the west coast of the United States and Canada. Chinese immigrants looking for a better life in North America had to pay the price of countless heartbreaks and humiliation; of having their dreams of gold shattered, their lives sacrificed on the railroad. Scattered like seeds on foreign soil, they had to struggle hard to take root, braving hostility, discrimination, and inequality. Having shed blood, sweat and tears, they have emerged from a century of stoic endurance with pride in their achievements.

Sources of pictures: The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley