It was at dawn that Seamus O’Connell boarded the coffin ship packed with hundreds of other Irishmen. As the ocean stretched, he watched his home grow smaller and smaller, and his family vanished. With the locket clutched in his hand, they lived as a ripped out photo on one side, while the Pope lived on the other. His goals were plainly threefold: Labor, cash in, and return home. Over the next few months, he would embark on the perilous journey across the Atlantic Ocean to the land of opportunities and begin his new life.

 

…

 

“For the kind that’s so desperate for money, ya’ sure don’t work like it! ‘Merica didn’t let you come soil our land and snatch jobs from them true Americans for nothin’. Get yer bums to work!” His boss, a native-born American, snapped at him before trodding away, grumbling under his breath,  “What kinds are immigrants anyway? Irish or apes—they’re all the same anyway.”

 

Seamus nodded. His hand wiped the beads of sweat that poured from his head, leaving a smear of coal residue across his face. As soon as the opening within the mine was blasted, he dug his pick repeatedly into the hard, black sediment. Behind him would be women or teens who carried baskets bigger than their bodies, filled with coal as heavy as their body weight.

 

Seamus felt pity for them. Nonetheless, at the end of the day, a job was a job, and money was money. That was more important than anything else in the world.

 

As the day grew darker, so did these men. Yet, they still worked arduously through the mines because having something to do with their hands was better than having nothing at all, waiting around aimlessly for the potato crops to miraculously spring up. Eventually, they dug so deep that sound could no longer traverse through the compact walls of rock, and no other light but the ones on their helmet shone through. From the outside, the repetitive sound of Seamus’ pick echoing through would blend in with the hundreds of other men clanking theirs against the coal. 

 

To passerbys, they were all no more than slaves to the United States.

 

…

 

“Irish or apes—they’re all the same anyway.” Seamus laughed over his liquor, “That’s what he said! Looks like what the older Irishmen around here are saying is true, eh? Looks like the Americans don’t let it rest when discriminating against us, even after a bunch of decades.”

 

“Sure, but I think that really riles me up—forces me to prove to all of them that while we Irish may be poor, we got the spirit of a lion!” The Irishman next to him at the bartop bared his yellow teeth before taking a swig of his beer, its foam spilling out.

 

Seamus grinned back at him; though he was sober enough to take note of his own drink as he watched the man before him swing back and forth impetuously. Their moment of silence was barely a silence, for it was filled with ruckus that rang out from those around them.

 

In this small pub, all the Irishmen sought solace in their small nightly congregation.

 

“Such a shame that we are treated differently from Americans… Maybe we are different, and more capable than them. We handle all the dirty and backbreaking stuff, we stay loyal to our Catholic faith—Hell, even our women here are laboring long and hard.” A different Irishman pulled up beside Seamus, his wooden barstool creaking as he lifted himself to sit.

 

“Yeah? My wife has been juggling work in a factory and taking care of the kids and their education. Wonderful woman, my wife.” The swaying Irishman responded straightaway.

 

As the two men laugh and brag about their wives, Seamus felt a jolt of dejection strike him.

 

His routine has been repetitively breaking waterfalls of sweat at the mines and returning to the pub at night to drink out the aches that overwhelmed his entire body. He had spared no time for his wife nor family, who were still suffering through the Great Famine in Ireland. Upon that thought, he felt a wave of anger overcome him. How dare these men talk of their wives and families who are happily settled here in this nation without any regard to him—the outlier who left everything behind and came here selfishly by himself, knowing full well that he may never even return for as long as the famine remained?

 

Leaving his presence from the two men that resounded the entire pub with laughter and howling, Seamus stared down at the amber liquid swirling in his glass. 

 

Perhaps he should retire for the night before everything spirals on him.

 

Admittedly, the scent of whiskey and the congregation of others of his kind here made it too addicting to leave. What he would’ve given to continue breathing in the free air of home instead of returning back to his tight living quarters, shared with ten other men, while suffocating amidst the waves of sweat, tears, and musk.

 

“Cheers to freedom!” The men behind him clanked their glasses together.

 

…

 

In the same way that Seamus clutched the locket during his transatlantic passage, he pressed it against his heart as he boarded the path in migrating to the East coast. At least moving away from the Chicago cold would offer him solace in putting his mind off of his past life—constantly farming crops that yielded nothing but a single, shrunken, sprouts-ridden potato to get by the winter.

 

The new job offered a slightly higher pay, and Seamus was willing, as any immigrant would be, to make the most out of his stay on American soil, even if it meant pocketing just a few extra dollar bills.

 

In San Francisco, he meets Li Wei, a Chinese immigrant who has been working on the transcontinental railroad under the Central Pacific Railroad.

 

At first, Li Wei spoke nothing but pidgin, but once Seamus raised a brow at him, calling out his ability to speak perfect English, then came the perfect English that rolled from his tongue.

 

“So, why have you come to San Francisco, Mr. O’Connell?” Li Wei asked as his hands laid a wooden stick taller than himself onto the rocky soil, landing it with a thump.

 

Seamus wiped a sweat away on his forehead and immediately held up his hand for inspection. This time, however, no traces of black lingered on his palm. He turned to pick up another plank from the bundle.

 

“Chicago felt too much like home. Too cold, too many Irishmen—felt too much like I was at home.” He grumbled.

 

“I get that. I don’t like to get too comfortable here either, or else I might stay for longer than I intend.” Li Wei stood up and looked at the track in front of him before snickering, “Who am I kidding? I can’t possibly stay here. I got a wife and kids at home. I need to send back remittances to them.

 

“My wife is very hardworking, did you know that Mr. O’Connell? She is working long hours at the factory while raising our children and educating them simultaneously. Maybe it’s in our blood, not just Chinese blood, but our immigrant blood. You and me both, Mr. O’Connell. Maybe we are destined to be here, working our bums off for a nation we do not even serve, because we are capable of enduring this.”

 

Seamus glanced at Li Wei before trailing to what he was looking at.

 

The transcontinental railroad extended vastly across the empty Californian land. It continued into the distance until it could not be seen anymore, and through the fog would be another fifty feet after the next fifty feet until it reached Sacramento.

 

“We’re all the same,” Li Wei continued, “The Italians migrated to Argentina, the Indians to Africa and the Caribbeans, the Eastern Europeans to other parts of the States. We’re all the same, yet…Somehow the Chinese are targeted. To hell with the Americans and their Chinese Exclusion Act!”

 

Seamus laughed at him, and so did Li Wei in return. They laughed until the sun went down and until all the planks from the pile were laid, only to continue the same thing the next day.