AANHPI Heritage Month: Chinese American chronicler gets his own 'Google Doodle'

Today's Google Doodle honors Corky Lee.

Today is Cory Lee Day in New York City. The late Lee, who chronicled the history of Asian Pacific America through his work as a photographer, journalist and activist, received another honor as the subject of today's Google Doodle.

In 1988, May 5th was proclaimed to be "Corky Lee Day" in honor of his lifelong contributions to New York City’s communities.

"Throughout our childhood, our parents expounded upon the importance of doing the right thing. Simply because it was the right thing to do and carried with it an implicit call to action," said his brother John "Johann" Lee.

"Perhaps they were prescient in giving Corky his Chinese name (Lee Young Kuo). Loosely translated it means, 'to praise,' 'uplift the nation,' and so he did. Through his lens, he gave Americans of Asian descent their history, pride, and dignity and reminded all Americans of Asian contributions to the national American mosaic. Corky raised the consciousness not only of his camera's subjects but that of the nation as well."

Corky Lee was born in Queens, New York City to Chinese immigrant parents on September 5, 1947. When he was in school as a young boy, he learned about the transcontinental railroad in social studies class. During the lesson, he saw a photo that celebrated the completion of the railroad—but noticed a lack of representation for the thousands of Chinese laborers who helped build it. Lee later shared that this event inspired his life’s work.

He went on to teach himself photography and attended Queens College to study history. After graduating college with a degree in American studies, Corky Lee photographed events in Manhattan's Chinatown and the AAPI community more broadly. His parents worried that an artistic career would not be a lucrative path, but he was convinced that photography could be a catalyst for their common politics and activism.

“I didn’t want the AAPI community to be invisible,” he told Curtis Chin, filmmaker of the documentary "Dear Corky."

Lee began photographing community festivals, parades, protests and performances, as well as robust local activism in the area. In May of 1975, he took one of his most famous photos showing the protest of Chinese Americans, in which tens of thousands marched to protest police brutality after a Chinese man named Peter Yew was strip-searched and beaten without just cause.

CORKY LEE

One of Corky Lee's best known photographs was of a 1975 protest in New York City.

Across his life, Lee’s photos were included in countless publications like Time Magazine, The New York Times, New York Post, and more. He also won many awards for his works, and his life has been covered in movies like Not on the Menu: Corky Lee’s Life and Work (2013) and Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story (2022).

Later in life, Lee often visited Promontory Summit in Utah to recreate the photo that had been taken when the transcontinental railroad was completed. He invited several descendants of the Chinese laborers who were not pictured back in 1869 in an effort to show that Asian American history is American history.

While photographing an event during the pandemic in 2021, Lee caught COVID-19. He tragically died at the age of 73 on January 27, 2021, at a hospital in Queens. The community mourned this loss, lining the streets during his funeral procession and staging multiple exhibitions in memoriam of the late photographer.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter or at his blog Views From the Edge.