The 8-Year-Old Chinese-American Girl Who Helped Desegregate Schools—in 1885

[Septimus Prime]

https://www.history.com/news/chines...X4cZPhs9-_qwehmBZyRrDr6xYVeJYDu1hsFwG7yVut0Hs

When Joseph and Mary Tape, a prosperous middle-class Chinese-American couple, tried to enroll their eldest daughter, Mamie, at the all-white Spring Valley Primary School in September 1884, Principal Jennie Hurley refused to admit her, citing the existing school-board policy against admitting Chinese children.

At the time, anti-Chinese sentiment ran high in California, as many white Americans blamed Chinese immigrants for taking their jobs during tough economic times. Due to their appearance, customs and religious beliefs, people of Chinese background were assumed at the time to be incapable of assimilating to mainstream American culture.

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In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese immigration for a period of 10 years and prevented all Chinese from becoming naturalized citizens.

In San Francisco, Chinese children (even American-born) had long been denied access to public schools. Despite a law passed by the California state legislature in 1880 that entitled all children in the state to public education, social custom and local school-board policy still kept Chinese youngsters from attending the city's white schools.

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Barring Mamie Tape from Spring Valley not only violated the 1880 California school law, Gibson argued—it also violated Mamie's right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Tape v. Hurley first went to Superior Court, which agreed with Gibson's interpretation of the constitution, and went further to say that "it would be unjust to levy a forced taxupon Chinese residents to help maintain our schools, and yet prohibit their children born here from education in those schools." The case advanced to the California State Supreme Court, which in March 1885 affirmed the Superior Court decision and ruled that state law required public education to be open to "all children."

But as the court had said nothing to threaten the prevailing "separate but equal" doctrine that justified segregation, the San Francisco school board successfully pushed for the quick passage of a new state law authorizing separate schools for "children of Chinese and Mongolian descent."

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In the years to come, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Plessy v. Fergusonformally established the constitutionality of the separate-but-equal doctrine, and two separate cases—Wong Him v. Callahan (1902) and Gong Lum v. Rice(1927)—specifically upheld states' rights to segregate Chinese Americans in public schools. In the latter case, which involved another highly Americanized Chinese family in Mississippi, the Court set a powerful precedent that made it even more difficult for civil-rights lawyers to combat segregation.

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So, I know I definitely didn't know about this until just now.

But here's a little reminder that there was separate but equally shit treatment for all minorities in America!

 

[kradical]

But here's a little reminder that there was separate but equally shit treatment for all minorities in America!

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Not that we need to get into oppression olympics, but whilst I'd agree that the treatment of minorities in America has been shitty, I certainly wouldn't say it's been equally so.
Interesting article though.

 

[Shoeless]

I wonder if, should Roe vs. Wade get overturned, that will be the signal to the American government to start fast-tracking a return to the Confederacy mindset, and we'll see segregation laws revive and start separating schools? Or is there no way that America can ever put that genie back in the bottle, and desegregation is here to stay?

 

[Deleted member 907]

Not that we need to get into oppression olympics, but whilst I'd agree that the treatment of minorities in America has been shitty, I certainly wouldn't say it's been equally so.
Interesting article though.

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I don't think we need to go into the specifics of the volume of violence when the types of violence perpetrated were almost exactly the same. Segregation, pogroms, rape, enslavement, property theft, and being murdered was experienced by all PoC groups. If you didn't want to bring up the oppression olympics, then you shouldn't have brought it up since that seems to be your only point.

I wonder if, should Roe vs. Wade get overturned, that will be the signal to the American government to start fast-tracking a return to the Confederacy mindset, and we'll see segregation laws revive and start separating schools? Or is there no way that America can ever put that genie back in the bottle, and desegregation is here to stay?

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We don't need actual segregation laws to segregate the populace. Desegregation didn't reverse 200 years of disenfranchisement or 70 years of redlining. If anything, we're just as segregated as before if not more. Just look at the racial breakdown of major metropolitan cities by district.

 

[PHOENIXZERO]

I wonder if, should Roe vs. Wade get overturned, that will be the signal to the American government to start fast-tracking a return to the Confederacy mindset, and we'll see segregation laws revive and start separating schools? Or is there no way that America can ever put that genie back in the bottle, and desegregation is here to stay?

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Segregation still exists in the U.S. Including the school system. The South is more integrated because of the focus on the Jim Crow shit while much of it in Northern States was done through other ways and ignored.

 

[Soundscream]

First of all it wasn't equal, and the "!" aint helping you at all here.

 

[Deleted member 2779]

This seems like a pretty important piece of the narrative for civil rights, hope it gets taught more.

I wonder if, should Roe vs. Wade get overturned, that will be the signal to the American government to start fast-tracking a return to the Confederacy mindset, and we'll see segregation laws revive and start separating schools? Or is there no way that America can ever put that genie back in the bottle, and desegregation is here to stay?

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Desegregation holds an interesting place in America's collective historical memory because it largely represents one of the biggest wins of the classic civil rights era, which it was, but there doesn't seem to be much attention given to what happened after. Malcolm Gladwell had a podcast on this and there's a response that should be read as well.

This kind of constructed amnesia helps perpetuate the myth that the U.S. solved racism by changing a few laws. A revival of segregation laws would be a symbolic win but there's plenty of damage being done anyway as others have pointed out.

 

[Khanimus]

The "equally shitty!" remark is a good way to start your thread off on a real sour note and distract from the story you've linked to.

 

[Pet]

I wonder if, should Roe vs. Wade get overturned, that will be the signal to the American government to start fast-tracking a return to the Confederacy mindset, and we'll see segregation laws revive and start separating schools? Or is there no way that America can ever put that genie back in the bottle, and desegregation is here to stay?

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There's no way in the world that we'll go back to official segregation.

De facto segregation has never left, though.