Utah In Focus

Jo-Ann Wong stands in front of Union Station in Ogden on May 9, 2019, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit. Countless Chinese laborers helped lay the original railroad, and some of their descendants—including Wong, as a member of the Chinese Railroad Workers Descendants Association—participated in the 150th celebrations. Jo-Ann's father, James Wong, was a “paper son” of a Chinese railroad worker from California. “Paper sons” were Chinese people who immigrated to the United States by obtaining documents that claimed they were blood relatives of other Chinese residents, since US law in the early twentieth century strictly limited Chinese immigration. James and his brother Ducky came to Salt Lake City in 1950 to open China Village restaurant. James (“Jimmy”) is mentioned in the original Peoples of Utah book from 1976, in the chapter “The Pioneer Chinese of Utah” (p. 262). In 2024, a monument for the Chinese workers was unveiled on the grounds of the Utah State Capitol. Utah Historical Society, POUR23_0041_003.tif.