Corky Lee's Asian America: Fifty Years of Photographic Justice by Corky Lee , Mae Ngai and Chee Wang Ng (Editor)

 

Publisher: Clarkson Potter

On Sale Date:April 9, 2024

Pages: 320

I reviewed a  digital review copy from the publisher

For fifty years, Corky Lee photographed the social justice movements in Asian American and Pacific Islander communities all across America in breathtaking pictures, where  a selection of 200 photographs can be seen in this book. Corky Lee did important work with his pictures, breaking the stereotype of Asian Americans as submissive, being the underdog, passive, and, above all, foreign to this country. The book takes you to his photographs from the start of his photographer career in New York City's Chinatown in the 1970's to his sad passing because of Covid 19 in 2021. He photographed many social justice protests in primarily NYC Chinatown, which covered many issues and problems the AAPI community where facing; police brutality against Asian Americans, protests for yellowface and orientalism in shows like Miss Saigon, a commemoration ceremony of the building of the Transatlantic Railroad which erased the thousands Chinese workers who actually build the railroad with blood, sweat, tears and sometimes even their own life because of the harsh and inhuman working conditions, and the immediate effects and aftermath of 9/11 to NYC Chinatown, because the former World Trade Center and Ground Zero site was just a few block away from Chinatown, and as an effect Sikh communties where wrongly seen as terrorists, of the AAPI community proudly waving and wearing the American flag after 9/11 and the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on Asian communities in the USA, and the awful wave of anti-Asian hate and violence the pandemic caused.Corky Lee’s Asian America represents Lee’s mission to chronicle a history of inclusion, resistance, ethnic pride, and patriotism and it shows pictures that are never shown before

The story behind the impressive and moving pictures are told by Corky Lee himself, and the book contains contributions by artist Ai Weiwei, filmmaker Renée Tajima-Peña, writer Helen Zia, photographer Alan Chin, historian Gordon Chang, playwright David Henry Hwang, and more. and a foreword by writer Hua Hsu.

Corky Lee's Asian America is a book not to miss, I never heard of Corky Lee before, and this book opened my eyes to the important work he did of portraying the struggles many Asian Americans face, and the important social justice movement that this created. I truly believe that his pictures are important American history that needs to be preserved and protected, and that the voices of the AAPI community needs to be heard and never be silenced of erased from history again. I truly recommend reading, and in this case also watching the touching pictures by this fenomenous photographer that is truly one of a kind who did work that no one else did. And this book is one of a kind too!