PEOPLE & EVERYDAY LIFE
The Tape Family and Chinese American Civil Rights
2:06
Why do some Asian Americans attempt to assimilate into American society?
Chapter objectives
- Learn about the Tape family’s unique position as immigrant brokers between white and Chinese American worlds throughout multiple generations.
- Understand the strategies and decisions employed by the Tape family in an attempt to gain inclusion and belonging during a time of immense anti-Asian exclusion, segregation, and xenophobia.
- Explore the differences between exclusion and segregation in the context of the Tape v. Hurley court case and the limitations of inclusion into white America for Chinese Americans.
What is the difference between “exclusion” and “segregation”? In 1885, Joseph Tape (Jeu Dip in Chinese) brought a lawsuit on behalf of his eight-year-old daughter, Mamie, against the San Francisco Board of Education after she was refused admission to a public school. The California Supreme Court case Tape v. Hurley (1885) ruled that California could not exclude Chinese children but allowed for the creation of segregated schools. As a family of immigrant brokers, the Tapes were allowed some privileges of the white American middle class, yet faced discrimination numerous times even while they embraced being American. This chapter explores the lives of the Tape Family, a Chinese American family that strived for inclusion into white American society during a period of heightened anti-Chinese sentiment.
Modules in this chapter
That Chinese Girl
In-Between People
The World’s Fair
The Strange Career of a Chinese Interpreter
A Modern Chinese American Woman
That Chinese Girl
In-Between People
The World’s Fair
The Strange Career of a Chinese Interpreter
A Modern Chinese American Woman
Chapter Sources
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Daily Alta California (San Francisco, CA), 1884-85.
Gibson, Otis. The Chinese in America. Hitchcock & Walden, 1877.
Him Mark Lai papers, Ethnic Studies Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Lai, Him Mark. “Roles Played by Chinese in America during China’s Resistance to Japanese Aggression and during World War II.” In Chinese America: History and Perspectives Chinese Historical Society of America, 1997.
Low, Victor. The Unimpressible Race: A Century of Educational Struggle by the Chinese in San Francisco. East/West Publishing Company, 1982.
Ngai, Mae. The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.
Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004, NAID 414, , Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, RG 85, National Archives, Washington, DC, San Francisco, CA.
“Ruby Kim oral history interview conducted by Combined Asian American Resource Project.” From Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. 1974. Transcripts.
