Tape v. Hurley
(1885) is one the most important civil rights decisions in history. The parents of American-born Mamie Tape successfully challenged a principal’s refusal to enrol their daughter and other children of Chinese heritage into the Spring Valley Primary School in San Francisco, California, seven decades before the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education. Joseph and Mary Tape had both emigrated from China to the United States as children. After marrying in 1875, Joseph established himself as a well-regarded businessman in both the white and Chinese communities. The prosperous middle-class Chinese American family settled in the Cow Hollow neighbourhood of San Francisco, which at the time had few Chinese residents. The Tapes’ rise as young immigrants to the middle-class was at a time when anti-Chinese sentiment and even violence ran high in California and across the country. Many Americans, particularly those in West Coast states, blamed Chinese workers for lower wages and economic hardship. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act which prohibited Chinese immigration for a 10-year period and prevented all Chinese from becoming naturalized citizens.
