Racism also pervaded the curricula and textbooks, driving a wedge between Chinese Americans and their white classmates. “In grade school I was fairly successful in being admitted to the ‘inner circles,’ as it were,” one ABC recalled of her childhood in the 1910s. “Children are not prone to think a great deal of their ‘social selves’ and since I spoke English as well as they, and played and dressed as they did, I was not regarded as an outsider.” That is, until China was taught in geography and history class:

When we came to the study of China, the other children would turn and stare at me as though I were Exhibit A of the lesson. I remember one particularly terrible ancient history lesson; it told in awful detail about “queer little Chinamen, with pigtails and slanting eyes” … and went on to describe the people as though they were inhuman, and at best, uncivilized. Even I, young as I was, resented these gross exaggerations which were considered the gospel truth by other pupils. I meditated on ways and means of absenting myself from class that day; I would have welcomed a sudden and violent attack of illness, or even sudden death, but since my health remained disgustingly good, I was forced to sit through a very embarrassing hour.

(Chang 180-181)