Homeschool Chinese: Art & Living History
As it was the Year of the Horse (my daughter's zodiac), we returned to San Francisco for the annual Chinese New Year Parade. This time, we were accompanied by friends and we chose to visit the Chinese Historical Society of America Museum (CHSA). Founded in 1963, CHSA is the oldest and largest organization in the country dedicated to the documentation, study, and presentation of Chinese American history. Through exhibitions, publications, education, and public programming, CHSA promotes the contributions and legacy of Chinese in America.
In the main gallery, CHSA’s rich and varied collection tells personal and historical narratives, providing a dynamic survey of immigration, labor history, and stories of resilience. During our visit, we were delighted to take part in a dramatic retelling of “I Want to Go to School: The Case of Tape vs. Hurley”. As former living history volunteers ourselves, we loved it. The presentation was performed in the traditional Chatauquan format - the presenter spoke about their life in character, then the audience was allowed to ask questions of the character, and finally the the presenter came out of character to answer additional questions that the characters themselves would not have been able to answer.
Tape vs. Hurley
Mary Tape was a biracial Chinese American woman who believed that her daughter, Mamie, should have the same access to education as white children in San Francisco. In particular, Mary Tape wanted her daughter to be able to attend public school. When the local school principal, Jennie Hurley, stood in the schoolhouse door to bar Mamie’s entrance on the sole
grounds that she was Chinese, Mary Tape took Jennie Hurley to court. To read more about this landmark case, almost seventy years before the famous Supreme Court Decision Brown v. Board of Education desegregated American public schools, visit the National Women's History Museum online exhibit, Chinese American Women: A History of Resilience and Resistance.
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