I am the product of a diasporic migration that originated in China more than one hundred years ago. My paternal great， great， great-grandfather departed from the 19th century colonial port city of Hong Kong bound for America as a laborer for the construction of the Sierra Nevada segment of the Transcontinental Railroad. Chinese American history texts and photograph collections offered me a limited understanding of what it must have been like to be transported thousands of miles from one’s home， toiling sixteen hours from sunrise to sunset， and feeling the uncertainty of what lies in the following day’s work.