Asian Fortune Your source for all things Asian American
By CeCe Wang
April 28, 2013 – Today, an enormous number of Chinese students and young professionals fly to the United States via airport with their legal student and work visa to seek better life opportunities. However, in the 19th century, Chinese civilians who were seeking to escape war and poverty by selling labor to American and Canadian railroad recruiters were not as lucky.
On April 28 at the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in Washington, DC, Roberta Chew and Eric Lowe shared the stories of how their families dreamed of coming to the U.S. and Canada for railroad construction work by ship, but somehow ended up in Panama.
The conditions on the ship were so harsh that it was like selling piglets to be slaughtered for a bag of rice, Chew and Lowe said. During that period, foreign investment in railroad and canal in Panama attracted thousands of Chinese as contracted workers. Those workers who stayed after the railroad and canal construction started their own business, formed commercial sectors and dominated the retail trade in Panama. Chew’s grandfather owned a retail shop in Panama City.
In the 1870s, Lowe’s great grandfather sold his labor to Canadian railroad construction for a bag of rice. As one of the 17 survivors among 178 people on a Canada-bound ship from China, Eric’s great grandpa did not reach Canada but ended up landing in Panama due to the ship’s miscalculation. Soon upon arrival, however, he didn’t become a railroad worker, but joined a local Catholic Church and started his own business by selling holy water within the community. Unlike other Chinese in Panama who only stuck to the Chinese community, Eric’s great grandfather reached out and expanded his business to the Latina population, started a pearl business and eventually opened his own chain grocery store.
Both Chew and Lowe’s predecessors tried to pursue their dreams by crossing the Pacific Ocean back in the 19th century. Although the ship did not lead to their wonderland – the U.S. and Canada, they found their ways to survive in an impoverished country through hard work and business savvy.
