Mary Tape's Frustration

This letter is written from the perspective of Mary Tape.   It is an extended version of the letter she wrote to the Daily Alta in reaction to her neighborhood school’s refusal to let her daughter Mamie enroll.

…While I have had to overcome a few more difficulties than my husband, I have always considered myself lucky.  Although I physically look Chinese, I act and feel Caucasian due to the circumstances I was born into.  I know more about the white American experience than many Europeans who recently immigrated here!  I don’t know how much more I have to prove that I am just as American as my white neighbors.  Before I met Joseph years ago, I thought I would always have to straddle both the Chinese and white American worlds by myself for the rest of my life.  Growing up in San Francisco, I realized early on that the ability to traverse both worlds was rare.  The Chinese stayed in Chinatown.  I never physically fit in with whites, because I was always somehow reminded of how I looked different.  But then when I met other Chinese, I also didn’t feel a connection or kinship towards them.  And then I met Joseph…we faced differing challenges, but our outlook couldn’t have been more similar! 

Our “in-between” nature carried through into our marriage. Take for instance, Mamie’s birth—it made no sense for me to have a Chinese midwife when I myself barely know much about what it means to be culturally Chinese.  I never questioned whether I would get a physician.  For years, we were able to blend together our two influences.  For a number of summers, Joe and I explored the California countryside, traversing a number of beautiful sites in nature.  However, we also sometimes even ate Chinese food. 

We always had the option to remain in-between both worlds.  Our agency to choose drastically waned however into the 1880s when a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment spread over America.  Policies such as the Chinese Exclusion Act have drastically stripped away the privileges I once maintained as a bilingual American. We have unwillingly become victims of the “Chinese problem.”  I have slowly lost hope of the day my family will exercise the advantages of middle class whites.