{"id":1670,"date":"2019-08-01T08:49:40","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T08:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/?page_id=1670"},"modified":"2019-08-01T08:49:40","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T08:49:40","slug":"chinese-immigrants-confront-anti-chinese-prejudice-1885-1903","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/19-american-empire\/chinese-immigrants-confront-anti-chinese-prejudice-1885-1903\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Immigrants Confront Anti-Chinese Prejudice (1885, 1903)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mary Tape Protests Chinese Segregation (1885)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary\nTape, a Chinese immigrant mother, fought for her daughter, Mamie Tape, to integrate\npublic schools in California. The case, Tape v. Hurley (1885), reached the California\nSupreme Court in 1885 and, despite a favorable ruling for Tape, the San\nFrancisco Board of Education built a segregated Chinese school which Mamie Tape\nwas forced to attend. In the following letter, Mary Tape protested the denial\nof her daughter\u2019s entry to Spring Valley School <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the Board of Education\u2014Dear Sirs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see that you are going to make all sorts of excuses\nto keep my child out of the Public schools. Dear sirs, Will you please to tell\nme! Is it a disgrace to be Born a Chinese? Didn\u2019t God make us all!!! What right\nhave you to bar my children out of the school because she is a chinese Decend.\nThey is no other worldly reason that you could keep her out, except that. I\nsuppose, you all goes to churches on Sundays! Do you call that a Christian act\nto compell my little children to go so far to a school that is made in purpose\nfor them. My children don\u2019t dress like the other Chinese. They look just as\nphunny amongst them as the Chinese dress in Chinese look amongst you\nCaucasians. Besides, if I had any wish to send them to a chinese school I could\nhave sent them two years ago without going to all this trouble. You have\nexpended a lot of the Public money foolishly, all because of a one poor little\nChild. Her playmates is all Caucasians ever since she could toddle around. If\nshe is good enough to play with them! Then is she not good enough to be in the\nsame room and studie with them? You had better come and see for yourselves. See\nif the Tape\u2019s is not same as other Caucasians, except in features. It seems no\nmatter how a Chinese may live and dress so long as you know they Chinese. Then\nthey are hated as one. There is not any right or justice for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You have seen my husband and child. You told him it\nwasn\u2019t Mamie Tape you object to. If it were not Mamie Tape you object to, then\nwhy didn\u2019t you let her attend the school nearest her home! Instead of first\nmaking one pretense Then another pretense of some kind to keep her out? It\nseems to me Mr. Moulder has a grudge against this Eight-year-old Mamie Tape. I\nknow they is no other child I mean Chinese child! care to go to your public\nChinese school. May you Mr. Moulder, never be persecuted like the way you have\npersecuted little Mamie Tape. Mamie Tape will never attend any of the Chinese\nschools of your making! Never!!! I will let the world see sir What justice\nthere is When it is govern by the Race prejudice men! Just because she is of\nthe Chinese decend, not because she don\u2019t dress like you because she does. Just\nbecause she is decended of Chinese parents I guess she is more of a American\nthen a good many of you that is going to prevent her being Educated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mrs. M. Tape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: \u201cChinese Mother\u2019s Letter,\u201d Daily Alta California<\/em>, April 16, 1885, 1.\nAvailable online via California Digital Newspaper Collection (https:\/\/cdnc.ucr.edu\/?a=d&d=DAC18850416.2.3).
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee Chew, \u201cThe Biography of a Chinaman\u201d (1903)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee\nChew immigrated from China at the age of 16. He worked as a domestic servant\nfor an American family in San Francisco, started a laundry business, and later ran\nan importing business in New York City. In the following passage, he attacked anti-Chinese\nprejudice in the United States.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I heard about the American foreign devils, that they\nwere false, having made a treaty by which it was agreed that they could freely\ncome to China, and the Chinese as freely go to their country. After this treaty\nwas made China opened its doors to them and then they broke the treaty that\nthey had asked for by shutting the Chinese out of their country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026When I first opened a laundry it was in company with\na partner, who had been in the business for some years. \u2026 We had to put up with\nmany insults and some frauds, as men would come in and claim parcels that did\nnot belong to them, saying they had lost their tickets, and would fight if they\ndid not get what they asked for. Sometimes we were taken before Magistrates and\nfined for losing shirts that we had never seen. On the other hand, we were\nmaking money, and even after sending home $3 a week I was able to save about\n$15. When the railroad construction gang moved on we went with them. The men\nwere rough and prejudiced against us, but not more so than in the big Eastern\ncities. It is only lately in New York that the Chinese have been able to discontinue\nputting wire screens in front of their windows, and at the present time the\nstreet boys are still breaking the windows of Chinese laundries all over the\ncity, while the police seem to think it a joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026During his holidays the Chinaman gets a good deal of\nfun out of life. There\u2019s a good deal of gambling and some opium smoking, but\nnot so much as Americans imagine. Only a few of New York\u2019s Chinamen smoke\nopium. The habit is very general among rich men and officials in China, but not\nso much among poor men. I don\u2019t think it does as much harm as the liquor that\nthe Americans drink. There\u2019s nothing so bad as a drunken man. Opium doesn\u2019t\nmake people crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 Some fault is found with us for sticking to our old\ncustoms here, especially in the matter of clothes, but the reason is that we\nfind American clothes much inferior, so far as comfort and warmth go. The\nChinaman\u2019s coat for the winter is very durable, very light and very warm. It is\neasy and not in the way. If he wants to work he slips out of it in a moment and\ncan put it on again as quickly. Our shoes and hats also are better, we think,\nfor our purposes, than the American clothes. Most of us have tried the American\nclothes, and they make us feel as if we were in the stocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

. . . Americans are not all bad, nor are they wicked\nwizards. Still, they have their faults, and their treatment of us is\noutrageous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason why so many Chinese go into the laundry\nbusiness in this country is because it requires little capital and is one of\nthe few opportunities that are open. Men of other nationalities who are jealous\nof the Chinese, because he is a more faithful worker than one of their people,\nhave raised such a great outcry about Chinese cheap labor that they have shut\nhim out of working on farms or in factories or building railroads or making\nstreets or digging sewers. He cannot practice any trade, and his opportunities\nto do business are limited to his own countrymen. So he opens a laundry when he\nquits domestic service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The treatment of the Chinese in this country is all wrong\nand mean. It is persisted in merely because China is not a fighting nation. The\nAmericans would not dare to treat Germans, English, Italians or even Japanese\nas they treat the Chinese, because if they did there would be a war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no reason for the prejudice against the\nChinese. The cheap labor cry was always a falsehood. Their labor was never\ncheap, and is not cheap now. It has always commanded the highest market price.\nBut the trouble is that the Chinese are such excellent and faithful workers that\nbosses will have no others when they can get them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026It was the jealousy of laboring men of other\nnationalities \u2014 especially the Irish\u2014that raised all the outcry against the\nChinese. No one would hire an Irishman, German, Englishman or Italian when he could\nget a Chinese, because our countrymen are so much more honest, industrious,\nsteady, sober and painstaking. Chinese were persecuted, not for their vices,\nbut for their virtues. There never was any honesty in the pretended fear of\nleprosy or in the cheap labor scare, and the persecution continues still,\nbecause Americans make a mere practice of loving justice. They are all for\nmoney making, and they want to be on the strongest side always. They treat you\nas a friend while you are prosperous, but if you have a misfortune they don\u2019t\nknow you. There is nothing substantial in their friendship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026More than half the Chinese in this country would\nbecome citizens if allowed to do so, and would be patriotic Americans. But how\ncan they make this country their home as matters now are! They are not allowed\nto bring wives here from China, and if they marry American women there is a\ngreat outcry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All Congressmen acknowledge the injustice of the\ntreatment of my people, yet they continue it. They have no backbone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the circumstances, how can I call this my home,\nand how can any one blame me if I take my money and go back to my village in\nChina?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Lee Chew, \u201cThe Biography of a Chinaman,\u201d The Independent<\/em>, 15 (19 February 1903),\n417\u2013423<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Link to original source: https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=GMVZAAAAYAA<\/a>Source: Lee Chew, \u201cThe Biography of a Chinaman,\u201d The Independent<\/em>, 15 (19 February 1903), 417\u2013423. Available online via Google Books (https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=GMVZAAAAYAAJ<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mary Tape Protests Chinese Segregation (1885) Mary Tape, a Chinese immigrant mother, fought for her daughter, Mamie Tape, to integrate public schools in California. The case, Tape v. Hurley (1885), reached the California Supreme Court in 1885 and, despite a favorable ruling for Tape, the San Francisco Board of Education built a segregated Chinese school […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":370,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1670","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1671,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1670\/revisions\/1671"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}