In Search Of Equality

Washburn, the California Supreme Court nullified a law imposing an onerous tax only on Chinese immigrants and aimed at discouraging Chinese immigration. An 1885 lawsuit by Joseph Tape, a Chinese parent, challenging the exclusion of Chinese children from the public schools, led to an order admitting his child. An 1890 measure attempted to remove San Francisco's Chinese residents from Chinatown and ghettoize them in a less desirable part of the city - the first attempt by an American municipality to segregate its inhabitants on the basis of race. Ten years later, after the discovery of suspected cases of bubonic plague in Chinatown, an attempt was made to force the Chinese to be inoculated with an experimental antiplague vaccine. These measures, too, were challenged by the Chinese and eventually struck down in the courts.