A letter from Joseph, soon after Mamie marries.
Dear Mamie,
I do not feel your interest in Herman Lowe is a good one, especially for our family's reputation. His lowly status will hinder the upward mobility you gain from me and your mother. Instead of a wedding present, I give you this letter, with my honest concerns and dissaproval of you eloping with Herman.
Look at all we have done for you. I argued for your right to public schooling when principal Miss Jennie Hurley refused to let you attend. I stressed what good Americans we are and how abiding we've been to American customs, traditions, and practices. I stated, how you, "Mamie Tape is not a child of filth or vicious habits" (52) and the family photograph of us that circulated clearly shows our bourgeois status as an American family. Though we won the case, we unfortunately had to send you to Chinatown's Chinese Primary School because of anti-Chinese bureaucratic obstacles.
Nevertheless, we taught and dressed you to be respectable. We sent you to school when many other Chinese families only sent their sons. And now, to throw it away, on something you believe is love, with someone that grew up in Fish Alley in Chinatown? Where is the status or security in that? What kind of life do you want for your children? How can you build upon the privileged life your mother and I created for you when you've chosen to run off with a man like Herman? Do you understand what kind of obstacles we've faced to be successful in this society that does not view us as wholly American, or American in the ways it "counts"?
The disadvantageous nature of your marriage has already manifested in your living situation. You have already located to Chinatown. Your mother and I only did so because we were barred from sending you to an all-white school, and were forced to send you to a Chinese Primary School in Chinatown! Even then, we were surrounded by mostly white, interracial, and Chinese American families, on the outskirts of Chinatown.
I hope your younger sister, Gertrude, will not follow in your footsteps. I hope she does better.
Dad
To Joseph Tape's relief, Mamie and Herman become one of "Portland's most successful Chinese Americans" (203). Additionally, Joseph was proud that his grandchildren from Mamie, Harold and Emily, were upwardly mobile and entered the professional class. And the Lowes fare better than the Tapes in California, in light of the Great Depression.
Yet, Joseph's relief and pride stems from the financial and status success, not the fact that Mamie was the only one of his children to have a marriage that was loving and lasting.
Dear Mamie,
I do not feel your interest in Herman Lowe is a good one, especially for our family's reputation. His lowly status will hinder the upward mobility you gain from me and your mother. Instead of a wedding present, I give you this letter, with my honest concerns and dissaproval of you eloping with Herman.
Look at all we have done for you. I argued for your right to public schooling when principal Miss Jennie Hurley refused to let you attend. I stressed what good Americans we are and how abiding we've been to American customs, traditions, and practices. I stated, how you, "Mamie Tape is not a child of filth or vicious habits" (52) and the family photograph of us that circulated clearly shows our bourgeois status as an American family. Though we won the case, we unfortunately had to send you to Chinatown's Chinese Primary School because of anti-Chinese bureaucratic obstacles.
Nevertheless, we taught and dressed you to be respectable. We sent you to school when many other Chinese families only sent their sons. And now, to throw it away, on something you believe is love, with someone that grew up in Fish Alley in Chinatown? Where is the status or security in that? What kind of life do you want for your children? How can you build upon the privileged life your mother and I created for you when you've chosen to run off with a man like Herman? Do you understand what kind of obstacles we've faced to be successful in this society that does not view us as wholly American, or American in the ways it "counts"?
The disadvantageous nature of your marriage has already manifested in your living situation. You have already located to Chinatown. Your mother and I only did so because we were barred from sending you to an all-white school, and were forced to send you to a Chinese Primary School in Chinatown! Even then, we were surrounded by mostly white, interracial, and Chinese American families, on the outskirts of Chinatown.
I hope your younger sister, Gertrude, will not follow in your footsteps. I hope she does better.
Dad
To Joseph Tape's relief, Mamie and Herman become one of "Portland's most successful Chinese Americans" (203). Additionally, Joseph was proud that his grandchildren from Mamie, Harold and Emily, were upwardly mobile and entered the professional class. And the Lowes fare better than the Tapes in California, in light of the Great Depression.
Yet, Joseph's relief and pride stems from the financial and status success, not the fact that Mamie was the only one of his children to have a marriage that was loving and lasting.
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