LOS ANGELES — Next year marks the 150th anniversary of when large numbers of Chinese started working on the transcontinental railroad in the United States. Very little is known about these workers lives and what happened to them after the construction ended. Stanford University is working on a project to piece together the lives of the Chinese railroad workers by reaching out to their descendants.
洛杉矶 — 明年是大批华人开始在横贯美国的铁路上工作的150周年。铁路完工后，人们对这些华工的境况和命运知之甚少。美国斯坦福大学正在开发一个项目，通过联络华工后裔，从他们那里拼凑起美国铁路华工的人生。
Desperation and courage could very well describe what led Bill Yee’s ancestors to come to the United States from southern China, and they became a part of key moments in American history.
绝望和勇气可以很好地解释比尔·于的祖先们从中国南方来到美国的原因。他们成为了美国历史上重大时刻的一部分。
“My great-great-grandfather came over during the gold rush days and he returned back to China as a wealthy man. My great-grandfather came over to work on the railroad. He came over to work with black gunpowder, black powder on the railroad and he died working on the railroad,” said Yee.
华工后裔比尔·于说：“我的曾-曾祖父在淘金热的时候来到美国，他后来成为富人，衣锦还乡。我的曾祖父到美国来修铁路。他的工作是和修铁路的黑火药。他后来死在修铁路的工作上。”
But that didn’t stop his grandfather from coming to the U.S. on false papers. He ran a laundry and Yee’s father continued that business.
但是这没有阻止他的祖父持假证件来到美国。他经营了一家洗衣店，后来他的父亲继续了这个行当。
Shelley Fisher Fishkin wants to hear stories like Yee’s. Fishkin is co-director of the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford University. She is working with scholars in Asia to look for descendants of railroad workers on both continents to reconstruct the lives of these men.
斯坦福大学的雪莱·费雪·菲什金想听到更多象比尔·于这样的故事。菲什金共同领导斯坦福大学的“北美铁路华工项目”。她与在亚洲的学者合作，在太平洋两岸搜寻铁路华工的后代，以还原这些人的人生。
The aim is to create a digital archive of artifacts, documents and oral histories from the railroad worker’s descendants so historians can piece together the mystery of who they were and what happened to them.
研究的目的是要根据铁路华工后裔的口述历史来创建文物数字档案，以便历史学家们能够了解、拼凑起美国铁路华工的生活和命运。
Through the Stanford University project, the lives of these men can be remembered, so the role they played in American history will be remembered by their descendants.
通过斯坦福大学的这个项目，我们可以记住这些人的生活；这样他们在美国历史中的作用也不会被他们的后人所遗忘。