About
Corky Lee's Asian America: Fifty Years of Photographic Justice
Photographed by Corky Lee
Edited by Chee Wang Ng and Mae Ngai
On Sale April 9th, 2024
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 Authors:
Corky Lee (1947-2021) was a native of Queens, New York, and an activist-photographer who
documented Asian American communities and movements for social justice for fifty continuous years.
Mae Ngai is Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and professor of history at Columbia
University. She is the author of several books, most recently The Chinese Question.
Chee Wang Ng is a New York-based visual artist and photographer
