Jan 30, 2021
Corky Lee died on Jan. 27 of Covid. He is now the undisputed Asian American photographer laureate. There was no sense of a modern Asian American civil rights movement before Vincent Chin inspired a generation to stand up and be seen. Corky Lee documented it all. I talk of my friendship with Corky as I read my post from the AALDEF blog. Then, I reprise my 2017 interview with Corky where he talks about the photograph he saw as a young boy of the Transcontinental Railroad. The Golden Spike united America but the photograph didn't show the people who built it all--Chinese Americans. That slight birthed the photographic justice that inspired Corky's life's work.
See more on my amok website.
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Corky's inclusive pictures of the Transcontinental railroad.
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--Emil Guillermo