Corky Lee
"My images at the American Museum of Natural History are the missing pages of American textbooks...Each photograph represents a page of information or history, and focuses on the neglected or omitted experiences and struggles of people who come to the United States from Pacific shores.” - Corky Lee
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Corky Lee is a self-taught photographer from Queens, NY best known for documenting the Asian American experience. Lee worked as a freelance photographer in addition to this full-time job at a print shop. Though without formal photography training, Corky spent many decades taking photos of all events related to Asian American life, from protests against misrepresenting the Vietnamese in Miss Saigon to candlelight vigil events held by Sikh Americans at Central Park.
Lee says his drive for photographing the Asian American experience came from the iconic photo at Promontory Point, Utah after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. Despite there being over 10,000 Asian workers who helped with the construction of the railroad, not a single Asian was included in the photo. "History — at least photographically — says that the Chinese were not present," Lee says. To help “right a wrong” and as part of the 145th anniversary of the railroad’s completion, Lee recreated the iconic photo with Asian Americans, some of them being descendants of Transcontinental Railroad workers.
Humorously proclaiming himself as the "undisputed unofficial Asian American Photographer Laureate," Lee has lived up to this title, as he took photos of all things related to Asian and Pacific Islander life in America. He documented protests after the murder and ruling of Vincent Chin, took pictures of decrepit housing conditions of Asian families in Lower Manhattan, and recorded demonstrations against racial profiling on South Asians and Sikhs after the 9/11 attacks. He also documented more light-hearted scenarios, such as a Korean woman’s celebration after winning Coney Island’s annual hot dog eating contest.
Lee died due to complications of Covid-19 in January 2021, but his legacy for Asian American representation in photography continues. A documentary describing Lee’s life and work, Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story, is in progress, and his work continues to tell an oft untold history of Asian America.
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“Anything that happens in the lives of Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Korean-Americans, Indian-Americans, Pakistani-Americans, Sri Lankan-Americans, Hmong-Americans, Thai-Americans, Cambodian-Americans, Burmese-Americans, Filipino-Americans, Malaysian-Americans, Hawaiians and other Asian-Pacific Americans is Corky Lee's business.” - The New York Times on Corky Lee
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