Mary Tape

She was born in Qing China, near Shanghai, and in 1868 emigrated as an unaccompanied minor to the United States. She found a home in San Francisco at the Ladies Protection and Relief Society, where she learned English and took the name of her caretaker, Mary McGladery. In 1875, she married Chinese-born Joseph Tape, with whom she had four children.[1] Tape's accomplishments as an amateur photographer and painter attracted the attention of a local reporter, who described his initial disbelief that "a Chinese girl" was capable of these skills.[4]

Mary knew she would be up against anti-Chinese sentiment and policies when she tried to enroll her youngest child, Mamie Tape, at Spring Valley Primary School, where she was denied entrance. The Tape family's 1884 suit against the school principal and the city's board of education was recognized by the Superior Court and upheld by the Supreme Court of California in Tape v. Hurley. The school superintendent, however pushed through legislation to create "separate but equal" Chinese schools and directed the Tapes to a new Chinese Primary School in Chinatown.[1]

While Joseph and Mamie Tape are named in the suit,[3] it was Mary Tape who continued arguing their case in a detailed letter of protest to the Board of Education, which concluded with an argument that prejudice is un-American:

I will let the world see Sir What justice there is When it is govern by the Race prejudice men! just because she is of the Chinese decend [...] just because she is descended of Chinese parents I guess she is more of an American then a good many of you that is going to prevent her being Educated.[2]