From across the sea, the wave of waves of Chinese came by the thousands, escaping war and poverty in southern China to seek their fortunes or gold rush in the Gold Mountain or California, America like Irishmen seeking personal freedom or relief from political and religious persecution . Later, converging on the enormous western worksite of the Transcontinental Railroad, the Chinese migrants spent years dynamiting tunnels through the snow-packed cliffs of the Sierra Nevada and laying tracks across the burning Utah desert. Their sweat and blood fueled the ascent of an interlinked, industrial United States. But those of them who survived this perilous effort would suffer a different kind of death-a historical one, as they were pushed first to the margins of American life and then to the fringes of public memory.