This unique fireside chat will focus on the Chinese laborers who were instrumental in the building of the American Transcontinental Railroad. The webcast will be held on September 24 at 8 pm EST and will include a question and answer period at the end of the one-hour broadcast.

Our two speakers will be Gordon Chang, the distinguished Stanford University history professor and Committee of 100 member, who has written extensively about the topic, including “Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad (2019)”, and Jindong Cai, the Director of the U.S. China Music Institute at Bard, who is staging an extraordinary oratorio production of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Zhou Long’s “Men of Iron and the Golden Spike” at the Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center on October 11. This large-scale symphonic oratorio honors the thousands of Chinese laborers who built the Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860s. The performance will feature an 80-piece orchestra, a 120-voice chorus, and six vocal soloists.

During the fireside chat, Professor Chang will talk about this important moment in the history of this country and Jindong Cai will talk about how the story was transformed into the powerful oratorio. Professor Chang was a collaborator when the oratorio was created. A short video clip of the oratorio will be shown during the webcast.

Chinese and Chinese Americans have contributed greatly to advance the success of this country in many ways – in industry, science, the arts, agriculture, philanthropy, political leadership, architecture, business, and more. The sacrifices of and the contributions that were made by the Chinese laborers who helped to build the Transcontinental Railroad are an unheralded part of American History.

Committee of 100’s purpose is to provide leadership and act as a constructive force in promoting the full participation of all Chinese Americans in American society and acting as a public policy resource for the Chinese American community; and advancing constructive dialogue and relationships between the peoples and leaders of the United States and Greater China.

Peter Young, a Committee of 100 Member and board member, will be the moderator.

Gordon H. Chang

Professor of History, Stanford University

Committee of 100 Member

Gordon H. Chang is the Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities and Professor of History at Stanford University. He is a leading academic scholar on the topic of the history of Asian Americans and their contributions and challenges in the United States. His latest book was published in May of 2025, “War, Race and Culture – Journeys in Trans-Pacific and Asian American Histories”. He is the author of “Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad (2019)”, “Fateful Ties: A History of America’s Preoccupation with China (2015)”, and coeditor of “The Chinese and the Iron Road: Building the Transcontinental Railroad (Stanford, 2019)”, among many other books. He has been a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2024.

Jindong Cai

Director, U.S. China Music Institute, Bard

Jindong Cai is director of the US-China Music Institute, professor of music and arts at Bard College, and associate conductor of The Orchestra Now (TŌN). Previously, he was a professor of performance at Stanford University. During his career of more than 30 years in the United States, Cai has established himself as an active and dynamic conductor, scholar of Western classical music in China, and leading advocate of music from across Asia.

Born in Beijing, Cai received his early musical training in China, where he learned to play violin and piano. He came to the United States for his graduate studies at the New England Conservatory and the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati. Cai started his conducting career with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and has worked with orchestras throughout North America and Asia. He has conducted most of the top orchestras in China. He is a three-time recipient of the ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming for Contemporary Music.

At Bard, Cai founded the annual China Now Music Festival, which presents new works by some of the most important Chinese composers of our time. Concerts are performed by The Orchestra Now at Bard’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and Stanford University. In 2019, the festival premiered Men of Iron and the Golden Spike by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Zhou Long—a symphonic oratorio in commemoration of the Chinese railroad workers of North America on the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.

With his wife, Sheila Melvin, Cai has coauthored many articles on the performing arts in China, as well as two books, Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese and Beethoven in China: How the Great Composer Became an Icon in the People’s Republic.

Peter Young

Committee of 100 Member, New York Regional Chair and Board Member

Peter Young is CEO of Young & Partners, a corporate strategy and investment banking firm focused on the life science and chemical industries. Mr. Young received a BA in Economics from Yale, an MS in Accounting from NYU, and MBA from Harvard Business School where he graduated with Distinction as a Baker Scholar. He is a CPA and a Chartered Global Management Accountant. He serves on a number of boards of directors, both corporate and non-profit and is President of Société de Chimie Industrielle, the108 year old leading life science and chemical industry non-profit organization and on the Editorial Advisory Board of Pharmaceutical Executive.