Hanuman: "Tracks" by Diane Lee Wilson

The book Tracks by Diane Lee Wilson is an inspiring story about an Irish immigrant named Malachy who goes to the middle of nowhere, Cisco town, to work on building the railroads across the United States. Despite the anti-immigrant environment of that time, Malachy eventually makes friends with the other workers, and at the end starts a farm with “Ducks” a Chinese immigrant. In the author’s note, Diane talks about the tendency of authors to press upon their characters our own 21st century ideals of fairness and equality, and that such tendencies are unfair to characters who otherwise would be perfectly happy with their world. She says that, on the other hand, it is not wrong to instill in her characters a sense of 21st century optimism, which allowed her to make the Chinese and Americans become friends over the course of the book, despite the heavy prejudices of their time.