A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS. Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story, a film directed by Jennifer Takaki, documents the life of Corky Lee as well as his dedication to creating a visual record of Asian Americans. Pictured is Corky in a self-portrait. (Photo/Corky Lee)

PHOTOGRAPHIC JUSTICE. Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story is a powerful film about the man behind the lens. Pictured is Corky’s photo of a man who was beaten by police with a billy club in the mid-1970s. The image was Lee’s first to make the front page of a newspaper. (Photo/Corky Lee)

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS. Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story documents the life of Corky Lee as well as his dedication to creating a visual record of Asian Americans. Pictured is Corky on 42nd Street. (Photo/Jennifer Takaki/All Is Well Pictures)

PHOTOGRAPHIC JUSTICE. Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story is a powerful film about the man behind the lens. Pictured is a 2020 photo taken during the pandemic. (Photo/Corky Lee)

From The Asian Reporter, V34, #5 (May 6, 2024), pages 10 & 17.

Directed by Jennifer Takaki

Airing Monday, May 13, 11:00pm to midnight

Oregon Public Broadcasting

By Kathleen Liermann

The Asian Reporter

Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story, a film directed by Jennifer Takaki, documents the life of Corky Lee as well as his dedication to creating a visual record of Asian Americans. For 50 years, the Chinese-American photographer recorded history by taking pictures of the parades, celebrations, challenges, and daily lives of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI).

Lee took an astonishing number of compelling photos — nearly a million. And Corky’s reason behind doing it? — "Because it needed to be done." During his life, Corky was also determined to push mainstream media into including AAPI culture as part of the visual record of American history. His forceful efforts actually got him blackballed by The Association Press for a period of time.

Corky was born in New York on September 5, 1947 to Chinese immigrants — his father, Lee Yin Chuck, and mother, Jung Ping Hung. The couple named their first American-born son Lee Young Kok in Chinese, but his birth certificate issued by New York City read Lee Young Quoork (his "paper name"), which used his father’s surname.

Under the name Lee Quoork, he was enrolled in the New York City public school system and soon was known by the nickname "Corky." In the film, he admits he realized he was Chinese when he first attended school. He also mentions that the first time he learned about anyone who was Chinese in his classes was in junior high during a lesson about a significant engineering achievement — the building of the Transcontinental Railroad from 1863 to 1869.

Young Corky thought it odd that in the accompanying photo of the completion of the railroad, there were only white people. He even pulled out a magnifying glass to be sure he was actually seeing what he’d noticed. Knowing that some 12,000 Chinese immigrants had labored long, hard hours to help build the railroad, the audacity of their lack of inclusion stayed with him.

Corky finished high school then graduated from Queens College with a degree in history. After college, in the 1970s, he worked as a community organizer advocating for tenant rights on behalf of people living in Manhattan’s Chinatown. It was also at this time that he started his self-taught hobby of taking photos.

During the next five decades, Corky took photos of

countless AAPI cultural events, protests, and more during the off-hours of his real job, which was performing sales, billing, customer service, estimating, and more at Expedi Printing, where he worked for 27 years. The company printed many of the area’s ethnic community newspapers.

Takaki’s documentary follows Corky’s many decades as the "Undisputed, Unofficial Asian American Photographer Laureate." — which was printed on the business card he carried.

Corky was present for innumerable events in the community — Lunar New Year, Thai New Year, the Santacruzan Filipino festival, the Japanese Obon Festival, Pakistan and India Independence Day events, and Diwali, to name a few. He documented the opening of the Confucius Plaza Apartments in New York, brought to light many, many protests, helped people learn about the injustice done to Vincent Chin, who was murdered in 1982, and more.

His photo of a 27-year-old engineer who was beaten by police with a billy club in the mid-1970s was his first to make the front page of a newspaper — The New York Post. The picture was published after Lee offered to and was rejected by many other news organizations.

The film also gives viewers a glimpse into Lee’s life — his school years; the discrimination he and his family experienced; his wedding at age 27, which was the "best-kept secret in the Asian-American movement"; the loss of his wife due to cancer in 2001; the financial struggle of being a freelance photographer; New York City mayor David Dinkins declaring May 5, 1988 as "Corky Lee Day"; exhibitions of his work; becoming unemployed due to layoffs in 2010; meeting Karen Zhou, who was Corky’s partner of 15 years; eventual awards and accolades for his photography and advocacy; his death in January of 2021 at the age of 73 due to COVID-19; and so much more.

One of Corky’s memorable achievements was his re-creation of the photo taken at the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad and the hammering of the final spike. In 2002, he gathered a group of Chinese Americans at that same location of the photo and took a new, historic shot, this time with descendants of the Chinese laborers who actually built the railroad in the 1860s.

Lee’s photographs documented the birth and growth of the Asian-American movement for social justice. He was also quite knowledgeable about the AAPI community and was often fondly referred to as the "Corkipedia."

Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story is a powerful film about the man behind the lens. Everyone should watch the film to experience not only Corky’s life story, but also to understand the social movement with which he dedicated much of his life.

Photographic Justice airs on Monday, May 13, from 11:00pm to midnight on Oregon Public Broadcasting.

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