I was supposed to review Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story (trailer here) during or around CAAMFest 2023, but I let the screener link expire and the screening during CAAMFest was on Mother’s Day. I finally reached out to the filmakers and was able to watch the documentary. When I first saw the list of films that were going to be screened at CAAMFest and saw this one listed, I knew I had to watch it.
I was a “friend” of Corky Lee, at least on Facebook but had never met him nor did I really know much about Lee (except that he appeared to be a photographer based on all of his postings) until I watched the documentary Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story:
“Born in Queens, Corky Lee, for a half-century, had been documenting New York City’s Asian American community.
His photos show the little-known struggle of Asians in America, including civil rights protests, racist immigration legislation, and violence towards Sikhs and Muslims of Asian descent since 9/11. “
Having blogged for 8Asians since January 2007, I’ve gotten to know a lot of people in the Asian American community (Corky & I have 77 mutual friends on Facebook) and learn about our history. I knew that Lee was a photographer and that was about it. After the watching the documentary, I could really relate to him, as his ethos was – that if an event wasn’t photographed, it really didn’t happen.
I also try to live by that ethos, except that I would add that if also wasn’t recorded on video, it didn’t happen. In many ways, my efforts to document events on 8Asians is the very same as Corky’s – if I’m not going to do it, who is? That’s why I’ve tried to document Asian American events or people that don’t get as much coverage that I am interested in, in particular around politics, and think I have one of the deepest coverage and focus on Asian Americans for certain events, like at the Democratic National Convention in 2012 & 2016, Fred Korematsu Day in California, the City of San Jose apology to Chinese Americans, Celebration & Commemoration of the 125th anniversary of Wong Kim Ark Day [3/28/1898] in San Francisco, etc.
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