THE Tape family

Written by Eric Chau, SFGMC Chorus Member

Come to find out later that the nice lady who walked me through the doors was my principal for the school, Mrs. Chin. Of course, this isn’t a story about my first day of school, but more so about the same scenario that happened about a hundred and eight years prior.

Same scenario – young child going to her first day of school but unlike myself, that child was turned away from the doors due to her being Chinese. Her name was Mamie Tape, a Chinese girl born in America to immigrant parents who had settled down in San Francisco. Her life would have been insignificant in United States history but for the fact that her parents, Joseph, and Mary Tape, tried to enroll her in school for an education. 

In 1859, San Francisco Unified had established a segregated school for Asian students – aptly named the “Chinese School” – where all Asian students were to attend before quietly cutting the funding for the school in 1871. Due to this, many Asian parents often sent their children to church schools or hired private instructors for their children. However, in 1880, the California state legislature passed the Political Code – a code which prevented school districts from refusing admission of non-white students. Despite the Political Code being in place, many school districts continued to the discriminate against students who are of non-white descent – which was the perfect setting for conflict when the Tapes decided to enroll Mamie in Spring Valley Science Elementary in 1884. 

As we all know, the Tapes were denied enrollment at the time due to her Chinese ancestry. However, the Tapes did not just sit and gave into this injustice. The Tapes took the matter to court and sued San Francisco Unified and the principal of the school, Jennie Hurley for discrimination and ultimately won. The school district did try to appeal the decision to the California Supreme Court, but the justices sustained the lower court’s verdict. The case was huge at the time as it guaranteed the right of children of Chinese parents to attend public schools and seems that the course of history was due to move towards equality and equity.

However – after the decision was handed down from the courts, the Superintendent of Public Schools in San Francisco, Andrew Moulder had sent a telegram to the state assembly on March 4, 1885, requesting the passage of pending bills to reestablish a separate school system for Chinese and other Asian students. The very next day, Assemblymen W.B. May championed Assembly Bill 268 and had the bill passed. The bill, AB 268 allowed for establishment of “separate schools for children of Mongolian or Chinese descent. When such separate schools are established, Chinese or Mongolian children must not be admitted into any other schools”. The passage of AB 268 had drastic effects as it allowed the San Francisco school board the re-establish the Chinese Primary School in San Francisco and raising the proverbial finger to the courts for their decision in Tape v. Hurley.

And just like that, Mamie Tape was not allowed to enroll in Spring Valley Elementary.

While we would like to know what happened to Mamie after the decision was made and everything had settled, it will remain a mystery as not much is known about the Tapes after. However, the decision of Tape v. Hurley remains a catalyst in the American education system for desegregation – opening the doors for similar cases such as Plessy v Ferguson and Brown v Board of Education.

Which brings me back to my story – as I had mentioned, I never knew how my very first day of school had influenced my perspective and understanding of being Asian American until I learned about Mamie’s story by chance during my junior year of high school. Even though Tape v Hurley is a local case, not many people knew about it. After learning about what Mamie had gone through, it gave me a perspective that change is something that we must fight for, and being less vocal about injustices does not allow for change to happen. Although change did happen in the case of the Tapes, it happened almost a century later when I walked through the doors of the elementary school.

I have taken that lesson with me throughout my life after graduating from SFUSD and that lesson still influences me today with the mission statement of San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. As a member, I have seen change in the last eight years within our chorus, whether it is DEI or the gradual stances we take within our membership to be more inclusive, change is happening much like the day I stood on the doorsteps of Spring Valley Elementary, at a very gradual pace.

Spring Valley Elementary is still a running elementary school in Nob Hill. As for the Chinese School – the school settled in what is now Clay and Stockton Street in Chinatown. The school had its name changed a couple of times – first to the Oriental School in 1906, then to Commodore Stockton Elementary School in 1924, and was then renamed again in 1998 to Gordon J. Lau Elementary School, after the first elected Chinese American Supervisor of San Francisco.

As an adult, I never really made the connection until I thought about it more recently when asked to write about someone in the AAPI community that had made an impact. While her case is not relatively known by most, Mamie Tape and her family did start a change that impacted later generations of Asian American students in San Francisco. As an adult, it is certainly not lost on me that over a hundred years after denying entry to a Chinese student that the principal of the school was an Asian woman. The same can also be said about the racist and prejudicial connotations of the Chinese School has now changed over a hundred years after to honoring a Chinese American who made an impact in San Francisco. 

Change do happen – sometimes at a slower and more impactful pace than we would expect it.

Helen Zia

Due to these efforts, one of the suspects was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. This case brought Asian Americans into the light & became more politically visible in society.

Since then, Zia has authored books and represented journalists of color during the Fourth United Nations World Congress on Women in 1995. She is also a queer woman as well as representing the LGBTQ+ community.

She came out at a time when queer people were still in the closet and not as visible. When asked how she felt she has helped advance LGBTQ rights with her work as a member of the AAPI community, Zia said, “I lived in times when people said there are no homosexuals in the black community or Asian community. We have to make sure it’s known that our communities are color. Make sure the Asian community knows that we exist. We have LGBTQ+ in everything.”

When Governor Newsom was still mayor of San Francisco in February 2004, he allowed the issuing of marriage licenses in the city. Zia and her partner were together for fourteen years at this time. They volunteered and helped process hundreds of people by typing up and doing much clerical work for marriage licenses. During the process, they even got married. Months later, the city was ordered to stop issuing licenses to same-sex couples putting thousands of couples in “limbo” regarding their status. Finally, the California Supreme Court declared all of these marriages performed were to be void.

For Zia, this was significant because her life changed. She was no longer seen as her partner’s significant other and vice versa. When her wife’s father was in the hospital, the couple visited him, and the nurse asked who they were; the father replied, “This is my daughter, and my favorite daughter-in-law.” Similarly, Zia’s mother introduced her new daughter-in-law the same way. Their families were extended.

When Hollingsworth v. Perry came about, Zia served as a key witness in the case sharing her experience of being married to her wife. She explained how the relationships amongst her family changed and they became an extended family as happens with heterosexual relationships.

As a journalist, Zia works to give people their voices. She tells the stories of the joys & woes that are not seen. She works to share the stories of people who are not getting the attention of whatever communities are in their lives.

She explains that the reason these stories have to be told is to bring out the human dignity of every person because they all deserve to be treated as equal human beings. Being an out & proud woman of color of these communities, she brings her journalism to all people that are kept in the margin.

She hopes that we reach a time where we can bring systemic change to injustices; however, we need to do the work to understand the whole community. She explained the changes the Baby Boomer generation has gone through. They were informed and happened, and that is what will continue happening in today’s times.

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