A Walk down Chinatown - The Chinese 'Ugly' Mural

As we entered into the tunnel which leads to Stockton street, we were taken into another world. Much of the building structures changed, perhaps not dramatically but rather the mixtures of Chinese signboards and oriental looking roofs seem to suggest another side of San Francisco City. We came to the Chinese Cultural Centre which had a mural dedicated to the building of the 1868 Central Pacific Railway. Victor explained that much to the dismay of the Chinese Community in Chinatown, the mural was painted by someone who was not part of the Chinese Community. Amy Nelder, the artist of the mural, was a White American. Amy Nelder was the granddaughter of the former police chief Alfred Nelder and daughter of Wendy Nelder. It was Wendy Nelder who pushed for her daughter to do the murals, thus the ‘ugly mural’ was purely a political connection between the Chinese Six Companies and the Nelders. The inscription of the mural, written in English, reads;

‘ On April 28, 1869, a team of 848 Chinese railroad workers, using only hand tools, set a world record, laying more than 10 miles of track in just 12 hours. For the entire year of 1868, the Central Pacific Railway laid only 350 miles of track – about one mile a day. Chinese immigrants, the overwhelming majority of whom came from Gwang Chou Province, constituted about 86% of the Central Pacific workforce, more than 12000 out of nearly 14000 workers.’

A careful look at the painting portrays the stereotypical Chinese immigrant dressed in a Western worker’s hat and pants. The furrowed brow and pursed lips on the faces of the Chinese men seems to reinforce the typical hardworking and conservative nature of the Chinese American community. Even the spelling of ‘Gwang Chou’ has a very American tinge, when one pronounces it.