Chinese and the transcontinental railroad

Angry Asian Man posted yesterday about an interview (in the Washington Post) with producers of an upcoming original series on AMC, Hell on Wheels. The series’ producers were asked why there were no Chinese characters in the series and, in their fumbling responses, gave no clear answer to the question but did manage to inflame emotions with a statement that “they ended up getting excised” from the show’s pilot. Angry Asian Man uses the statement to make a larger point about the historical contributions of Chinese. While I sympathize with Angry Asian Man’s broader concern, in this specific instance, he (and for that matter, everyone involved) confuses “history” in several ways.

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