442: Corky Lee was the undisputed, unofficial photographer laureate for Asian America

AA+PIs have a long history in the United States that dates back centuries, and have made lasting contributions to this country.

From establishing birthright citizenship, to decolonizing colleges’ and universities’ largely eurocentric academic landscapes alongside other minority groups, AA+PIs have impacted American society and the lives of millions beyond our community.

Despite this, our accomplishments have often been excluded from the history books.

Activist and photojournalist Corky Lee (1947-2021) spent five decades addressing these injustices. A new book, Corky Lee’s Asian America, which was published April 9, chronicles his quest for photographic justice, up until his death in 2021 from COVID-19. The book is a 50-year continuous record of the Asian American movement and features about 250 photos, distilled from the hundreds of thousands of photos Lee took over the course of half a century.

As the “Undisputed, Unofficial Asian American Photographer Laureate,” (according to his business card), Lee devoted his life to chronicling the AA+PI community. His aim was to break stereotypes that we are docile, passive, and foreign to the United States. Whether it was a large community event, or people going about their everyday lives, Lee’s photos showcase both the “Asian” and “American” sides of our community.

Correcting the narrative

Born in New York just four years after the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed, Lee was named Lee Young Kok in Chinese, but his birth certificate bore his family’s paper name, Lee Young Quoork. This was how he got his nickname, “Corky,” at school. Lee grew up in Jamaica, New York. His family operated a laundry business, and Lee and his three brothers all worked in the family business.

Lee’s career as an activist and photographer began in 1970 when he worked in social services at Two Bridges Neighborhood Council—just east of Chinatown in New York, where BIPOC residents lived in run-down tenements. His work included organizing rent strikes and taking photos (with a borrowed camera) to document residents’ living conditions. Lee’s photos were initially used in slideshows to educate and organize, but soon, he could be seen at crime scenes, protests and demonstrations, and more. One of his most famous photos was from May 12, 1975. It shows a bloodied Chinese American man being dragged away by police during a demonstration—which was a response to the arrest and beating of Chinese American Peter Yew the previous month. The photo was published in the New York Post that same day in the newspaper’s afternoon edition.

“Corky was one of those people that showed up everywhere,” says Mae Ngai, an editor for Lee’s book, describing Lee as “tireless.” She adds that no matter the size of an event, if Lee was there, it was important because he was chronicling it. And more often than not, he would be doing it gratis. He occasionally sold his photos as a freelancer, but Ngai says Lee’s work was mostly a labor of love. His day job was as an account executive at a minority-owned print shop, where he worked from 1983-2011.

Ngai met Lee in the early 1970s in New York’s Chinatown. The Asian American movement was just beginning to explode and they were both radical activists looking to make “good trouble,” as she describes it. Ngai says Lee saw storytelling as a way to change the narrative of history—specifically, one that had long erased Asian Americans.

Lee’s quintessential act of photographic justice—as Ngai says he described it—came in 2014 at Golden Spike National Historical Park in Promontory Summit, Utah. The site marks where the transcontinental railroad was completed in the 19th Century. Chinese workers played a large role in building the western half of the railroad but because of anti-Chinese racism at the time, they were intentionally excluded from the original photo from 1869, marking the occasion. On the 145th anniversary of the railroad’s completion, Lee brought together 250 Asian Americans, including direct descendants of railroad workers, for a reenactment of the original photo—this time rightfully including Asian Americans’ role in one of the greatest technological achievements of the time.