Quiet Odyssey

A Pioneer Korean Woman in America

Mary Paik Lee (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

264 Seiten

1990
University of Washington Press (Verlag)
978-0-295-96969-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Mary Paik Lee, born Paik Kuang Sun in 1900, left her native country in 1905, traveling with her parents as a political refugee after Japan imposed control over Korea at the close of the Russo-Japanese War. Her father labored in the sugar plantations of Hawaii for a year and a half before taking his family to California, where Mrs. Lee has lived ever since. Though her father knew the comforts enjoyed by the educated traditional elite in Korea, after emigration he and his family shared the poverty stricken existence endured by thousands of Asian immigrants in early twentieth century America. Mrs. Lee’s parents earned their living as farm laborers, tenant farmers, cooks, and janitors, and the family always took in laundry. Her father tried mercury mining until his health gave out. In their turn, Mrs. Lee and her husband farmed, sold produce, and managed apartment buildings.

The author is engagingly outspoken and is extremely observant of her social and natural surroundings. Recounted incidents take on memorable life, as do the sharply etched settings of California’s agricultural and mining country. She tells of singular hardship surmounted with resilience and characteristic grace. During much of her life Asian Americans were not treated as full human beings, yet she kept a powerful vision of what the United States could be.

Inhalt

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Origins

2. Oahu and Riverside

3. Claremont and Colusa

4. Roberts Island

5. Idria

6. Hollister

7. Willos

8. Marriage

9. Growing Rice

10. Selling Produce

11. Farming Again

12. World War II

13. Discrimination

14. Sons

15. Old Age

16. Reflections

Appendix A | The Historiographer’s Role

Appendix B | Operating a Korean American Family Farm

Appendix C | Korean Rice Growers in the Sacramento Valley

Bibliographic Essay

Illustrations

Maps:

Korea: At the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

California

Photographs:

The Paik family, Korea 1905

Passport issued to Paik Sin Koo, 1905

Church on (Ewa?) plantation

Paik Sin Koo, Hawaii, 1905

First grade class, Washington Irving School, Riverside, 1907

The Paik family, Idria, 1915

Transcript for Kuang Paik, San Benito High School, Hollister 1916-17

Paik relatives left behind in Korea, ca. 1917

Hung Man Lee at age twenty-two, Mexico City, 1914

Flooded rice fields, Willows, 1919

Henry Lee and his parents, Anaheim, 1926

The Paik and Lee families, Tremonton, Utah, 1926

Blackboard with Korean alphabet, Tremonton, Utah, 1926

Charlotte Paik with stone mill, Utah, 1926

Henry and Allan Lee and their mother, Anaheim, 1929

Henry Lee and his parents, El Modeno, 1934

Kindergarten class, Norwalk, 1934

Lee family’s produce stand, Whittier, 1940

Lee family’s apartment building, Los Angeles, 1950

Tony Lee and his parents, Los Angeles, 1950

Mr. and Mrs. H.M. Lee, Los Angeles, 1960

With Henry Lee’s Family, Los Angeles, 1969

Fiftieth wedding anniversary, Los Angeles, 1969

Paik siblings, Los Angeles, 1969

H.M. Lee with his half-brother and nephew, Seoul, Korea, 1972

Mrs. Lee with two sons and two granddaughters, Santa Cruz, 1987

Mr. and Mrs. Paik Sin Koo, Tremonton, Utah, 1926

Mary Kuang Sun Paik Lee, San Francisco, 1987

Produkt-Details

• Reihe/Serie: Classics of Asian American Literature
• Einführung: Sucheng Chan
• Verlagsort: Seattle
• Sprache: englisch
• Gewicht: 386 g
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Gender Studies
• ISBN-10: 0-295-96969-5 / 0295969695
• ISBN-13: 978-0-295-96969-5 / 9780295969695
• Zustand: Neuware