For decades, much of Asian American history was dismissed, overlooked, or considered impossible to document. Professor Gordon H. Chang helped change that.
A pioneering historian and one of the founding figures of Asian American studies, Gordon uncovered the records, photographs, artifacts, and personal collections needed to preserve stories that had been hidden in plain sight. His groundbreaking work restored the history of Chinese railroad workers and established their experiences as an essential part of American history.
In this episode of Aconic, Gordon shares his unconventional journey from antiwar activist to Stanford professor, how he built a field that many doubted existed, and why recovering the stories of everyday Asian Americans remains critical today. He also explains what history teaches us about the “perpetual foreigner” stereotype, America’s relationship with Asia, and what artificial intelligence can—and cannot—do to preserve our past. Because Asian American history isn’t separate from American history. It helped build America.
About This Conversation
Professor Gordon H. Chang, Stanford University historian and author of Ghosts of Gold Mountain, has spent decades recovering parts of Asian American history that were overlooked, undocumented, or considered impossible to reconstruct.
In this conversation with Aconic host Soon Yu, Chang discusses his Chinese American family history, political awakening during the Vietnam War era, unconventional path to academia, the development of Asian American history as a field of study, his research into Chinese railroad workers, the “perpetual foreigner” experience, and why preserving historical records remains essential in the age of artificial intelligence.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Listen to the full Aconic Podcast episode for the complete conversation.
How did Gordon Chang’s Chinese American family history shape his life and work?
Soon Yu: You were born in Hong Kong, but your family history stretches across China and generations of Chinese American life in California. How did that background influence you?
Professor Gordon Chang: I was born in Hong Kong to a Chinese American mother who was third-generation Californian and a father who was a successful artist in China. For many years, I faced the question of what kind of citizen I was. I could have been a British subject, a Chinese citizen through my father, or an American citizen through my mother.
Even though I am legally a U.S. citizen, I’ve always had what I would call a transpacific or multidimensional identity.
I was also very much influenced by my family. My grandfather on my mother’s side operated a highly productive gold mine in California near Truckee, so I grew up interested in the history of Chinese people in California going back to the mid-19th century.
My father was an artist who used his work to promote understanding of Chinese civilization and culture and better U.S.-China relations. On my mother’s side, her older sister became the first public school teacher of Chinese ancestry hired to teach in San Francisco in 1924.
I grew up around people who had passion, who wanted to do something different, and who did not simply stay on a safe or traditional path. I think something inside me always pushed me to try to make a difference in the world.
How did Princeton and the Vietnam War shape Gordon Chang’s political identity?
Soon Yu: You went from California to Princeton at a time when there were very few Asian American students. How did that experience change you?
Professor Gordon Chang: Princeton was a big transition. At the time, it was overwhelmingly white. There were about 800 men in my freshman class and only five Asian Americans.
In some ways, I felt more alienated at Princeton because I was so far from home and many of my classmates came from very different circumstances. It impressed upon me questions of race and identity.
I began to wonder who I was and what my purpose was in life. My father had passed away when I was only nine years old, so I had always wondered: What do we leave behind?
I became increasingly interested in politics and current events and passionately connected to the growing anti-war movement. My opposition to the Vietnam War was political, but it was also deeply moral. I saw the violence occurring and couldn’t understand why the United States was there.
That was when I became an activist against the war.
Why did Gordon Chang leave graduate school and take an unconventional path to academia?
Soon Yu: You were accepted into graduate programs at Harvard and Stanford, but instead of following the traditional academic path, you stepped away. Why?
Professor Gordon Chang: I was deeply involved in activism and community organizing. I initially turned down a generous offer from Stanford, changed my mind and went, and then changed my mind again and left.
Academia felt too removed from the fire I had within me to make change.
I didn’t go back to graduate school for about 10 years. That put me roughly a decade behind the traditional trajectory of an academic career, but I don’t regret it. It gave me tremendous life experience.
I did what I wanted to do. I went out and tried to change the world rather than focusing on having a lucrative or safe career.
I’m not saying everyone should follow the same path. Everyone has different circumstances. But I do believe there is room in the world for people who want to embrace a different path.
Why did some academics believe there was no Asian American history to study?
Soon Yu: When you entered academia, you encountered the idea that Asian Americans essentially didn’t have a history that could be studied. What were you up against?
Professor Gordon Chang: After I was hired at Stanford, I learned that one senior member of the history department had been reluctant, if not opposed, to my hiring because he said, essentially, that Chinese or Asian Americans “don’t have a history.”
Obviously, he didn’t mean there was literally no past. The question was whether that past could be documented.
Academic historians require documentation and evidence. There were enormous archives about presidents, generals, important political figures and business leaders. But where were the archives documenting everyday Asian Americans?
That became part of the challenge.
I have always believed that we are all agents of change. We all have life experiences that should be shared and valued. There was an Asian American history, but it had to be excavated and recovered.
A major part of my career has therefore been identifying and collecting records and encouraging people to donate collections from their families, businesses and organizations. Those materials are the foundational building blocks for writing history.
How did Gordon Chang recover the history of Chinese railroad workers?
Soon Yu: One of the clearest examples of your work is recovering the stories of Chinese railroad workers. How do historians reconstruct a history when the traditional archives are incomplete?
Professor Gordon Chang: A lot of this history has been hidden in plain sight.
Chinese railroad workers weren’t adequately acknowledged for decades. Recovering their history required us to think about new ways of locating evidence.
One example was photography. There were hundreds of photographs connected to the railroad, some of them quite well known, but historians had not necessarily examined them closely enough.
With digitization, we could enlarge those photographs dramatically. Suddenly, you could see Chinese workers throughout the images. You could see their numbers, where they were working, the trestles they were building and the tunnels they were making.
We also found payroll records from the Central Pacific Railroad. There were hundreds or thousands of pages buried within larger archives. When we examined them, we found Chinese names and even Chinese writing documenting receipt of wages.
Another important approach was archaeology. Archaeologists uncovered tens of thousands of pieces of material culture left behind where Chinese railroad workers lived, camped, worked, slept and ate.
We found food, clothing, camping materials and ceramics. In some cases, analysis of the clay could trace ceramics back to where they had been produced in China.
All of this opens different dimensions for understanding history.
Why does Gordon Chang describe Asian Americans as “perpetual foreigners”?
Soon Yu: You’ve written about how events in Asia and U.S. foreign policy can affect Asian Americans here at home. Why has the idea of the “perpetual foreigner” been so persistent?
Professor Gordon Chang: The Asian American experience has always been intertwined with geopolitics.
Prejudice and racism against Asian Americans certainly come from racial assumptions and ignorance at home. We saw terrible treatment of Asian Americans, and Chinese Americans in particular, during COVID.
But the perpetual foreigner experience is also connected to the way Asians have historically been positioned in the United States as aliens or foreigners.
It isn’t simply xenophobia. It also has to do with America’s long history of involvement in Asia, including war and conflict.
The Korean War, Vietnam War and tensions involving China all have implications for Asian Americans at home. Asian Americans can be mistaken for extensions or representatives of Asia rather than being seen fully as Americans.
I’ve used the term “transposed enemies” to describe this dynamic: countries in Asia have at different times been enemies of the United States, and Asian Americans can become the transposed representatives of those conflicts in the American imagination.
What does a “transpacific” perspective reveal about Asian American identity?
Soon Yu: You also look at the transpacific experience as something broader than conflict. What does that framework help us understand?
Professor Gordon Chang: My own life has always crossed these boundaries. I was born in Hong Kong, had a Chinese American mother and a Chinese father, and grew up with connections to both sides of the Pacific.
The transpacific perspective recognizes that our histories don’t fit neatly inside national borders. Asian American lives, American history and Asian history have long interacted with one another.
There are enormous benefits to international cooperation and exchange. Knowledge, culture, science and medicine all move across borders.
We all learn from one another, and sometimes those connections become intensely personal. Experiences in my own family reinforced for me how important international exchange and cooperation can be.
Why does studying Asian American history matter today?
Soon Yu: What’s your case for studying history at a moment when so much attention is turning toward technology and AI?
Professor Gordon Chang: Historical knowledge is vital for understanding where we’ve come from and who we are. It allows us to place the present moment in a longer-term perspective.
Without that perspective, we’re shortsighted.
For anyone who wants to be thoughtful, educated and aware, some understanding of the past is essential because history isn’t simply behind us. We are inheritors of history. History is around us all the time.
Can artificial intelligence help preserve Asian American history?
Soon Yu: How do you think AI will affect the writing and preservation of Asian American history?
Professor Gordon Chang: AI could help with the dissemination of historical knowledge. It can make information that historians have already found and published easier for people to discover.
But there is also misinformation online, and there are important things AI cannot access.
AI cannot draw from historical records that have never been digitized or made available online.
There are still enormous archival collections sitting in people’s garages, community organizations, businesses and personal collections. Those materials have yet to be excavated and studied, and they can provide entirely new insights into the past.
AI can’t look into people’s garages.
That work of historical recovery still has to be done.
What does Gordon Chang want future generations to understand about making history?
Soon Yu: After spending your career recovering and teaching history, what do you hope people take from your work?
Professor Gordon Chang: We’re all makers of history.
Whether we’re academics, activists or simply people contributing to society, it’s important for us to embrace the power and agency that we possess.
We all can make contributions. We all have voices. We all have experiences we can communicate and share, both as individuals and as part of a community.
Everyone, in some way, can help make and preserve history.
Topics Discussed
Asian American history; Chinese American history; Chinese railroad workers; Stanford University; Ghosts of Gold Mountain; Asian American Studies; Chinese Exclusion; race and identity in America; the perpetual foreigner stereotype; U.S.-China relations; transpacific history; historical archives; artificial intelligence and history.
