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Corky Lee's Asian America

Fifty Years of Photographic Justice

A conversation for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Join the Library, the Corky Lee Estate, Loyalty Bookstores, and the 1882 Foundation for a special conversation about the late photographer Corky Lee. An expert panel will discuss Lee's legacy and discuss photographs from this beautiful new book of Lee's work. 

Photographs from the book will be on display prior to the conversation, and copies of the book will be available for sale. A limited number will be available as giveaways courtesy of the DC Public Library Foundation. 

About the book and Corky Lee

The first book of its kind, ambitiously presenting not only an iconic photographer’s work but a sweeping, rich visual account of the AAPI social justice movement. A timely publication before AAPI Heritage
Month that will resonate deeply with readers today. Known throughout his lifetime as the “undisputed, unofficial Asian American photographer laureate,” the late photojournalist Corky Lee documented Asian American and Pacific Islander communities for fifty years, breaking the stereotype of Asian Americans as docile, passive, and, above all, foreign to this country. Corky Lee’s Asian America is a stunning retrospective of his life’s work--a selection of the best photographs from his vast collection, from his start in New York’s Chinatown in the 1970s to his coverage of diverse Asian American communities across the country until his untimely passing in 2021. Corky Lee's Asian America traces Lee’s decades-long quest for photographic justice, following Asian American social movements for recognition and rights alongside his artistic development as an activist social photographer. Iconic photographs feature protests against police brutality in New York in the 1970s, a Sikh man draped in an American flag after 9/11, and a reenactment of the completion of the
transcontinental railroad of 1869 featuring descendants of Chinese railroad workers, and his last photos of community life and struggle during the coronavirus pandemic. Asian American writers, artists, activists, and friends of Lee reflect on his life and career and provide rich historical and cultural context to his photographs, including a foreword from writer Hua Hsu and contributions from artist Ai Weiwei, filmmaker Renée Tajima-Peña, writer Helen Zia, photographer Alan Chin, historian Gordon Chang, playwright David Henry Hwang, and more. Featuring never-before-seen photographs alongside his best-known images, Corky Lee’s Asian America represents Lee’s mission to chronicle a history of inclusion, resistance, ethnic pride, and patriotism. This is a remarkable documentation of vital moments in Asian American history and a timely reminder that it’s also a history that we continue to make.

About the editors and speakers

Dr. Mae Ngai, co-editor of Corky Lee's Asian America, is Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and professor of history at Columbia University.  She is author of Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (2004); The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America (2010); and The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics (2021)

Janelle Wong is the Director of the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a Professor in the Departments of American Studies and Government and Politics. Wong's research focuses on Asian American politics. She is author of Immigrants, Evangelicals and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change and numerous articles and books on race and politics in the U.S. including "Asian Americans and the Politics of the 21st Century (with Karthick Ramakrishnan), published in the Annual Review of Political Science last year.

Dr. Theodore S. Gonzalves is a curator of Asian Pacific American history at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and is the former director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.  Dr. Gonzalves' latest book is Smithsonian Asian Pacific American History, Art, and Culture in 101 Objects (2023)

Ted Gong is the Founder-Director of the 1882 Project Foundation and President of the DC chapter of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance. He retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2009 as a Senior Foreign Service Officer who worked on policies, laws and operations related to visas, border security, immigration, refugees, citizenship, and consular services. He served in U.S. Embassies and Consulates in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Taipei, Manila, and Sydney and at the Departments of State and Homeland Security on comprehensive immigration reform and consular operations in the Middle East, South Asia, Asia and Pacific regions. Ted was educated at the University of California in History, University of Hawaii in Asian Studies, and U.S. Army War College in National Strategic Studies. He received a Frederick Douglass FD200 Award in 2019.

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