Mamie Tape Fights to Go to School
Based on a True Story
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
CALA BEST BOOK IN THE CHILDREN'S NON-FICTION CATEGORY • A CBC 2025 NOTABLE SOCIAL STUDIES TRADE BOOK FOR YOUNG PEOPLE SELECTION • Meet Mamie Tape, 8-year-old Chinese American changemaker who fought for the right to go to school in San Francisco in the 1880s. Follow Mamie's brave steps and discover the poignant history of her California Supreme Court case Tape v. Hurley.
"A gripping and accessible biographical story of a U.S-born Chinese girl caught in a pivotal moment of history, this book spotlights the discriminatory difficulties that visible minorities faced and the heroic actions and perseverance that ordinary people must undertake for equality. Truly inspirational! This is a must-read for all ages, really, because Chinese-American history is American history." –Teresa Robeson, APALA award-winning author of Queen of Physics: How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom
"I love that this book communicates, in such a clear and age-appropriate way, the can-do spirit and perseverance of the Tape family!" –Linda Lum Doler, great-granddaughter of Mamie Tape
Mamie’s mom always reminded her a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So when Mamie wanted to go to school, even though Chinese children weren’t allowed, she took her first step and showed up anyway. When she was turned away at the schoolhouse door, she and her parents took another step: they sued the San Francisco school board…and won! Their case Tape v. Hurley made its way up to the California Supreme Court, which ruled that children of Chinese heritage had the right to a free public school education. But even then, Mamie’s fight wasn’t over.
Mamie Tape Fights to go to School is the story of one young changemaker’s brave steps on the long journey to end school segregation in California. It began with a single step.
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In a carefully researched account, Huahn traces a Chinese girl's attempts to attend school in 1884 California. As part of the only Chinese family in her San Francisco–area neighborhood, Mamie Tape (1876–1972) and her siblings grow up playing with neighborhood children, and "I thought school would be the same." When she and her mother arrive, however, they are stopped by the principal and told, "Your kind is not welcome here." Tape's parents push against San Francisco's policy excluding Chinese children from its schools. The saying "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" repeats as the family takes step after step to ensure Tape's education. While the school board keeps institutions segregated, the family wins the right for Tape to attend classes—"because of the steps I'd taken, there was now one public school where we were welcome." A subdued palette of brown, maroon, and slate blue dominates Chan's sometimes-wooden digital illustrations, which focus on classroom scenes as well as the Tape family's well-appointed home. An author's note and bibliography conclude. Background characters read as white. Ages 4–8.
