Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - [Corky] Where do I begin?

I generally refer to myself as an ABC from NYC.

Now, if you're Chinese, you know what an ABC is: American-Born Chinese.

NYC, well, that's really very easy.

(gentle music continues) (camera clicking) I've been photographing Asian Americans in New York City for 50 years.

The last time I estimated the number of photographs I've taken, it came out to a little over 800,000.

(camera clicking) - Corky Lee is one of the main documentarians of the Asian American movement.

Social movements are so hard to capture and to put onto paper or put onto film.

This is a story that hasn't really been told.

- The collection he has is a testimony of our history, and that's why it's very, very important.

- And with all these events, and who do you see?

You see Corky Lee taking pictures.

- It isn't an Asian Pacific American event if Corky Lee isn't around.

-We exchanged business cards and I saw the "Undisputed Unofficial Asian American Photographer Laureate."

I just never heard of one.

-I don't think anybody truly knows who Corky Lee is.

They see that he is constantly there, and because of his constancy, he's almost invisible.

-Where does he get the energy to do all this year in, year out?

- [Corky] I take photographs that I think matter.

Specifically has to do with Asian Pacific Americans.

That's something that the average American does not see, and hopefully it opens a dialogue about our place in America.

I don't think people need to remember who I am.

It's more important that they remember the images.

In all my photographs, I'm trying to include pages that should be in American history books, but have been omitted.

I'm practicing photographic justice.

(light music) (camera clicks) (clicking continues) (film reel ticking) I think I realized I was Chinese from the minute I stepped into school.

Most of the time we were like the only Chinese family.

I was born in Queens, 1947.

My original birth certificate said Lee Young Quoork.

But by the time I was going to school, the kids were already calling me Corky.

Other than my brothers, I was probably the only Asian kid in the class.

There's a lot of bullying around in elementary schools.

You don't have to be Asian.

You could be a skinny kid or an obese kid.

You know, you get picked on.

You'd be called names and getting taunted by kids who had no idea what being Chinese was.

It was a constant.

Growing up, reading a lot of comic books, I guess I wanted to be somewhat like some of those comic book heroes in some form or another.

I think comic books gave you kind of a moral compass of what you might want to do in life, but didn't have any particular superheroes that were Asian.

You believe what you see.

(light music) In junior high school, I first read about Chinese building the railroad.

(train horn blows) That was the first thing in school that I had read that the Chinese had contributed to the country.

(bell clangs) It was like 12,000 of them.

They toiled long and hard.

A lot of them died along the way.

And at the time it was a major engineering achievement.

It was like the equivalent of building the Panama or the Suez Canal.

But when they showed the photograph of the completion of the railroad, with the two locomotives joining together, I didn't see any Chinese.

I thought maybe it's because my eyesight was poor.

I took off my glasses and looked really close, I didn't see any, so I got a magnifying glass and then looked.

I said, "Dammit, there aren't any Chinese here!"

The audacity, they didn't want the Chinese to be photographed as part of the celebration.

And I think it sort of worked in the back of my head for a really long, long time.

(parade music) (parade music continues) (parade music continues) (drumming music) (drumming continues) When you photograph these parades and cultural events, I'm also networking.

This is one way of maintaining contact within your community.

On an annual basis, I'll photograph Lunar New Year for the Chinese community, but there's also a Lunar New Year that Koreans observe.

(festive music) March is Holi, or Phaghwah, if you're from the Caribbean, and that's basically for Indians.

April is Thai New Year, and there's a Sikh observance of the beginning of their religion.

May is Santacruzan, which is a Filipino festival that has Roman Catholic roots.

But there's also the Asian Pacific Heritage Festival that got started beginning in 1979.

July, you have the Japanese Obon Festival to honor the deceased.

By August, you have Pakistan Independence Day and Indian Independence Day.

September you have the annual Muslim Unity Day parade.

By October, November, you have a Korean Harvest parade that takes place.

And then there was Diwali, an Indian festival generally towards October going into November.

For most of the festivals, I try to get the context in which these immigrants are in this country, in New York City.

So the juxtaposition of the photographs will show something of their culture and something about New York culture or American culture.

Asian Pacific Islanders are part and parcel of the fabric of America.

(traffic humming) I didn't pick up photography until after I got out of college.

When you graduate with American History, you could probably become a teacher, but I don't think I was cut out for teaching.

I really didn't know what I was gonna do.

I happened to get a job at Two Bridges Neighborhood Council as a community organizer in Chinatown, probably 1970.

I took a series of photographs of violations in buildings.

There was exposed wiring, the lack of proper mailboxes, heat and hot water and all this sort of stuff.

I would organize the tenants to withhold their rent.

Eventually, the landlord would agree to make the repairs, so then you could show the tenant in the next building or down the block, you can get this stuff done!

That sort of set my course.

(light music) We are the children of the migrant worker We are the offspring of the concentration camps Sons and daughters of the railroad builder Who leave their stamp on America - Chinatown in the seventies was a really happening place.

I lived in sort of a commune with about eight people.

We formed something called Asian Media Collective, AMC.

The purpose of Asian Media Collective pretty much was to document and disseminate what was taking place within the Asian American Movement as it pertains to New York or the East Coast.

Sing a song for ourselves - [Corky] The Asian American Movement got started in direct response to the Black Civil Rights Movement of the sixties - how to organize, how to rally people - fighting for identity, equality, equal pay, equal rights.

We got the right to choose - What Asian Americans realized, along with other people of color in the late sixties, was that what was called history at that point was not everyone's history.

- Minority communities were not getting an even break in the newspapers or on television.

Corky was always there.

He knew when to go, when to get out, when to leave the house and go down and see what was happening in the street.

He learned to recognize, okay, I may not have an assignment on this, but this is gonna be a story.

- [Corky] 1975, all the businesses closed in Chinatown at the height of this civil rights protest against police brutality.

Protest chanting Protest chanting - The policemen wanted to move a certain section, and people weren't willing to move.

So the police started to push and then eventually one of them swung a billy club and hit this individual.

I had actually been pretty close, probably within six feet, and there was no cause to hit the guy.

Immediately, I called up The New York Times and they said they had their photographer there, but they didn't know of any outbreak of violence.

I called The Daily News, they didn't wanna see the photograph.

And then The New York Post said they had their photographer there.

I said, well, my photographs show that somebody got beaten up and the police are taking him away!

And then there was a little bit of a silence on the other end of the phone, and then they came back to me and said, "Okay, kid, bring it in."

And I made the front page.

(camera clicks) - That photograph in The New York Post, that was a breakthrough for Corky, and I think for us, in terms of representing the issues.

I think it was the first time we showed city government that the community could organize into a political force.

- The Asian American Movement started in late 1960s.

At that time, there was really no quote unquote Asian American identity.

We were a bunch of different groups; Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos.

But the fact that the bigger society see us as one group and forcing us to realize that we have to group together to fight.

(upbeat music) (camera clicks) - Those were the Vietnam years.

People were being drafted and Chinese kids, just like everybody else, were sent to Vietnam.

- I don't think anybody want to get drafted.

Okay?

Because they're all from immigrant families, they may have been the first generation to get into college.

Some people who got drafted wound up in Japan or Germany; other people, like my brother, got drafted and he wound up looking over the border into Cambodia.

- My brother Jimmy, he was the only Asian in his platoon.

On the first day of jungle warfare training, the drill sergeant says "Lee!

Front and center!"

Jimmy jumps up, does a snappy front and center, standing right next to the drill sergeant.

The drill sergeant takes one step to the side, points directly at my brother Jimmy and says, quote, "This is what the enemy looks like."

(light music) (light music continues) - What the Asian American Movement was built on was this critique of the war as imperialist and racist.

That somehow Asian American lives were cheap.

A lot of Asian Americans were actually very radicalized by this critique of the war and by looking at these images of the atrocities in the war.

- We didn't wanna go to Vietnam.

We always felt that that was a war that it should not, we should not be involved in.

So a friend of ours, "You should meet this guy Corky Lee.

He's a draft counselor."

And that's the first time I met Corky.

- [Corky] I was a conscientious objector.

And then I basically started to try to help other Asians get draft deferment.

- We were doing all kinds of anti-war, civil rights action.

And I remember always seeing this guy coming around with a camera.

At first we said, you know, who the hell is this guy?

Is he a cop taking pictures?

But then after a while, we get used to him because we also know that how important is media in terms of what we're doing.

We understood if something is not recorded either by television, or by Corky, or by anybody, then something never happened.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) There's Corky!

Where?

They're closing a Chinatown subway stop There's Corky!

Where?

There's anti-immigrant agit-prop There's Corky!

Where?

There with Governor Gary Locke There's anti-Asian hate crime in Queens It's tough being Corky Lee How does he do it?

Well I don't know But he's at every protest He's at every show Why, he's where the Asian American action is Shooting politicians To performance artists It's tough being Corky Lee (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (birds chirping) - Probably, my earliest memory is living on Hollis Avenue in Queens.

It was 205.

We lived in a hand-laundry.

My father had come in 1929 from Toisan, about 90 miles southwest of Canton.

During the Depression, he had worked in laundries, but by the time the Second War broke out, he was working in the Camden Navy Yard and he learned how to weld aluminum.

When he was drafted, there was a segregated unit of Chinese Americans that wound up on the Burma Road working behind the lines.

By '46, as a result of the War Brides Act, my father was able to bring my mom over with my older sister.

So I was born a year later, and then I had three brothers after that.

After the war, my dad wanted to really pursue arc welding, but nobody would hire him.

He had four kids to feed, so he went back in the laundry business.

That was something that he knew and he settled down and basically had a family.

Growing up, I wouldn't say that I had a really happy childhood.

I had responsibilities that I didn't want, maybe it's because I'm the first son, that I had to do all the household chores like cooking, which I hated doing.

Then I had to work in the laundry business.

For my dad in the laundry business, it was like, I always kept asking him, why do I have to do this?

I don't see anybody else doing it.

My dad, he was pretty authoritative, non-communicative.

He always expected the best of you and would demand nothing less.

Over the years, I tried to understand him a little better.

Like a lot of immigrants, they were frustrated because this culture, American culture was really new to them and they were trying to preserve their culture and heritage and so forth.

And it ran counter to what their children were doing.

He had hoped that I would be a doctor or something, or a lawyer, but I wanted to be something artistic.

(light music) I was actually the last one to see my dad alive.

He passed away in 1982.

He was in the VA hospital at the time.

The doctor was telling me, "Oh, I didn't know you were that famous."

I said, "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, this is what your dad said."

He said, "Yeah, you're really famous.

I'm happy to know you."

I said, "Oh, my dad said all that about me?"

(light music continues) (birds chirping) (all speaking Toisanese) - Hey, how do you turn on Mom's DVD?

- Let's try it this way.

- [Corky] This is my mom and dad when they first got married.

- Gotta be 1934 or '33.

Yeah, my father's father and his mother.

(mother speaking Toisanese) - I made it!

- Mom wants to say that she made these handmade flowers over here.

She's got other flowers over here.

- [Mother] I made it!

- That's where Corky gets it from.

From our mother's side.

- I think Corky had a way of pushing himself even when he was little.

- [Corky] That's me.

- [Sister] He always wanted to lead, and always want to be the best.

(mother speaking Toisanese) - [Brother] The newspaper.

- [Sister] The World Journal.

- In 2001, she read in the papers that I had this exhibit at the Museum of Chinese in the Americas.

So she gathered up some of her friends, they huffed and puffed up to the second floor, and they were just about closing.

So she said that, "I'm Corky Lee's mom.

What do you mean I can't come in to see the exhibit?"

They said, "Oh, a thousand pardons Mrs.

Lee!"

They opened the door and they let Mom and her friends go in to see the exhibit.

(all laughing) (plastic rustling) See, this is basically my filing system.

My contact sheets are kept with the negatives and I have one print from the entire roll, which will be this one.

So this will help me locate it a little bit faster.

I've always said that I'm a self-taught photographer.

I learned from trial and error.

Every photograph is something a little bit different.

So this photograph of Lily Chow, the original negative was kind of flat, so I made it a little more contrastier.

This one's from Columbia University.

They had taken over Hamilton Hall to initiate Ethnic Studies.

I think it was '95 or '97.

This was the Edward Moody case, who was Indian American.

This is in Arlington Cemetery, and it was a memorial service there for the opening of the Smithsonian Exhibit on Japanese American concentration camps.

I generally use a wide angle lens and I move close.

So you get the whole landscape of what I am seeing.

For me, that's my style.

I used to come in after work pretty much on a weekly basis and I would print for several hours.

Back then the darkrooms were cheap.

They were like maybe $6 an hour, so I can print to my heart's content and not spend a whole lot of money.

I have a much broader definition of the Asian American Movement.

Nathan's Hotdog Contest.

There happened to be two Asian women.

They both weigh about 105.

They're 40 and 41 years old.

In 10 minutes, between both of them, they finished 75 hot dogs.

This is the first time that an Asian American woman won.

Could be a dubious note in Asian American history, but it's also very American.

All right?

Consuming as many hotdogs as you can on the 4th of July!

That's bringing, in my mind, an Asian American presence into the American landscape.

The more that this happens, it solidifies our space in this country.

(traffic humming) (indistinct talking) Being freelance is really hard to kind of gauge your finances.

But I don't know if I could work well in a journalistic organization because if they wanted me to go out to photograph an Azalea Festival, and I happened to know that there's something else that I think is better.

I would probably challenge the editor and say, "Well listen, I don't think that's really that important."

A lot of my photographs I do get published, were in the ethnic press 'cause mainstream press really wasn't interested.

I had to sell myself, be it Associated Press or any of the newspapers, trying to get people to accept a photograph that was important.

I got dubbed by the people in Associated Press, the Asian Demo Photographer They would kind of under their breath, "It's Corky Lee, he's got another protest."

You know?

And as often as I was successful, there were many times I was not successful.

- [Interviewer] What kind of images are you looking for when you take photographs?

- What kind of images?

Something that'll stop someone dead in their tracks and take a second look or something that's curious, something out of the ordinary, not on the menu.

- [Reporter] "Not on the Menu" featuring photographs taken by Corky Lee and Leland Wong of New York and San Francisco Chinatowns was recently on exhibit at the Chinese Culture Center.

And what kind of advice do they have for future photographers?

- Good photo journalists, I think have to have a feeling for people, situations.

But don't get hooked on photography unless you're willing to make tremendous sacrifices in your personal life.

And also your financial circumstance.

(car horns honking) (traffic humming) - How do you balance career and your personal life?

I don't think you can really have it all.

I probably should have paid more attention to my personal life.

People have said to me, my wedding with Margie was like the best kept secret in the Asian American Movement.

(light music) (camera clicks) We had gotten out of college and we'd been going out for about six years and it was when she threatened to leave me that I decided I'd better marry her.

I was 27 when I got married, so she was 25 at the time.

She was Toisanese like myself.

Her parents had a laundry - two laundries!

There was a lot of similarity.

Margie, she was an ABC like me.

Our wedding was in Chinatown.

My father made all the arrangements.

My dad never really said, "Hey, you can have like one table or two tables, that would be like 10 or 20 of your friends."

Right?

So I couldn't invite my friends and I sort of regretted that because when people heard: "Corky's married?

Come on, are you kidding me?"

(machinery running) This is where I work at Expedi Printing.

I've been here for 27 years.

I do estimating.

I do customer service.

I do the final billing and then I'm the bill collector, when you come down to it.

I think I'm fortunate at Expedi, I was flexible enough that I could go out and photograph things.

The owner had asked me at one point, "Where do you find the time?"

I said, "Well, I can do it before work.

I can do it on my lunch hour.

I can do it after work."

So he said, "Well, okay, fine.

As long as you get your work done, you can do the photography."

(subway clattering) Marriage has a lot to do with finances.

For a long time, I didn't bring any income in from what I photographed.

It probably irked my wife - that if I was really good at it, I could make a living out of it.

She wanted more time of me.

She said, "Well, why do you have to go and take the photographs?"

I said, "Well, if I don't, who will?"

(keys jingling) I come down here when I need to get matted photographs for an exhibit.

This is where I keep all my framed photographs.

I think people started to care about the photographs I took at least 10 years after an event took place.

I got a call from San Francisco in 1992.

The newspaper at that time, I think it was called East West, and the guy said, "Well, we're doing a 10th year anniversary article about Vincent Chin and Helen Zia says that you were in Detroit at that time, so do you have any photographs?"

(gentle music) I went from New York to Detroit to film the Vincent Chin protests.

There were Koreans, Japanese, Filipinos, and a few African Americans at the rally too.

People feel that this was the beginning of a coalition of Asian Pacific American Movement.

If it wasn't for Helen Zia, I don't think that the Vincent Chin issue would've gained the type of attention that it deserved.

Vincent Chin, a Chinese American was killed in Detroit days before his wedding.

Back then, in '82, I don't even think the term hate crime was in common usage.

The two guys beat him to death with a baseball bat, and they were white unemployed auto workers.

During that time period, the auto industry in Detroit was doing very poorly because Japanese car makers were doing very well.

Asians were seen as scapegoats.

They thought someone who looked Japanese was responsible for their loss of employment.

What really angered the community was the fact that the two guys never did any jail time.

They were released for I think $3,000 and some court fees.

Lily Chin, Vincent Chin's mother, was still grieving to probably the day that she died about the injustice done to her son.

(gentle music continues) (camera clicks) (light music) - [Reporter] Whereas Corky Lee has actively participated in the struggle to improve the quality of life in the Chinatowns of this nation, Mayor David Dinkins declared May 5th, 1988, "Corky Lee Day."

- I was moved because I had also known that David Dinkins had been responsive to the needs and the concerns about Asian American communities.

1988, I was doing an exhibit near City Hall and David Dinkins presented me with a certificate.

I was flabbergasted.

I said, Corky Lee Day is like Muhammad Ali getting the key to the city after the Thrilla in Manila but on a smaller level!

(door clatters) My friends have always been clamoring for me to do my own book.

I guess I'm too busy to actually sit down for even a day to look at what I've done.

- Hey, Corky.

What's up, man?

- Hey, glad you could see me.

So this represents the cover.

Chee has you down as guest editor.

My original title is "Not on The Menu: More or less Chinese America" A lot of times when people go into a restaurant and they order items that are not on the menu, those are like the specials.

So it's a metaphor for the best items that the restaurant has are not on the menu.

- Okay, so you have, "Not on The Menu."

What was your original title?

- [Corky] "More or Less."

'Cause if you translate more or less it's (speaking Chinese) That's a very colloquial Chinese phrase.

It's Chinese, but yet at the same time it's very American.

It's like one foot in both cultures.

This is a labor protest.

"Black, brown, yellow, white, all the working people must unite."

And this is for bilingual education - early 70s.

- [Editor] Very nice.

- [Corky] Okay.

- Looking at your pictures, I think the story behind it is also very intriguing.

- Very important, too.

The photographs themselves are overwhelming, so I need to cut down on the images.

I'm gonna self-publish it because I'm just too tired of waiting to hear from publishers.

I figured why spend all the time and effort to look for a publisher and then convince them?

I've convinced myself.

It's part of leaving a legacy, a visual record of what I've done.

(gentle music) I noticed that a lot of people have traveled outside of this country to take photographs.

You don't have to go outside the country.

You could stay in this country, save the money, photograph your Asian community.

But I understand there are like four photographers here?

Four of the eight?

Come on up.

(hands clapping) I wanna give you a public platform.

Tell them what you like or what you don't like about their photographs.

That goes a long way to convince them to continue what they're doing.

Thank you.

(crowd clapping) - [Photographer] Thank you!

- I never had role models when I started in photography.

I mean, if a white editor from AP would tell me something, I'd listen, but he didn't really take me aside and say, "Listen, can I buy you a cup of coffee?"

- Right, right, right.

- Right?

What I used to do, was that I would fold my arms.

Okay, fold my arms.

Right?

Then you get it up.

- [Photographer] Yeah.

- All right, so basically, but you have to learn how to do this.

- [Photographer] Sure.

- When you get to a certain age, you want to pass on some wisdom.

In my case, it's passing on photographs of a time and place that I got to witness firsthand.

- I was wondering if you have a website?

- A lot of young photographers reach out to me on, basically on Facebook.

Social media has been a way to communicate almost instantaneously with people all over the world.

I'm probably on on pretty much on a daily basis.

Previously, I really didn't have a way to make my own comments other than the simple caption of what the photograph was.

Now I can write some material about what I photograph and what I feel.

When they have machines out here, they're probably being sold and there's probably a company that is going out of business and it is just really sad.

Now, this building probably had a garment factory here.

Most Chinatown families, you made sure that one person worked in a garment shop so they could get union benefits.

(camera clicking) Since I've been unemployed, I find myself photographing a lot more.

I got laid off in 2010.

The whole company shut down.

I'm trying to hold out a year and a half where I'll be able to collect all my social security benefits.

Well, like most people that are unemployed, how are you gonna pay for your next bill?

How are you gonna do this and so forth.

I guess it just takes some time getting used to a new environment or a new situation.

(light music) There must be a reason for why things happen, and the more time you try to figure it out, the less time you have addressing the problem at hand.

So you put it to the side.

Let it be.

(light music) There are ups and downs in everybody's life, but 2001...

...I lost... ...my wife.

(somber music) (Corky sighs) I think about it often.

(somber music continues) She had a really short bout with breast cancer, and then once she was diagnosed with that, she was very resistant to modern medicine.

She actually passed away in about six months.

April, 2001.

She was like 52.

I did all my grieving in the darkroom.

As long as I'm doing something, I'm not gonna feel the grief or the grief will be minimized.

I think my wife is up there somewhere, wants me to keep occupied so that I don't miss her.

The year Margie passed away, 2001, while I was grieving her loss, September 11th happened and that shifted my focus.

After 9/11, there's a whole new paradigm of things that have taken place.

Filipinos being racially profiled because part of the population is Muslim.

The South Asian community has become much more active.

To this very day, a lot of South Asians, in particular Sikhs who are perceived to be Taliban or Al-Qaeda, display the American flag much more often.

You know, it's patriotic, but it is also protection because right after 9/11 there was an uptick in hate crimes towards that South Asian demographic.

What is searing in my mind is the images that I took from the rooftop of Battery Park City, looking down into the World Trade Center, which was basically a big hole in the ground at the time.

You always think of the first responders in law enforcement as being white.

That's why I photographed the firefighter Benny Hom sitting on the fender of his firetruck in Chinatown in 2002.

It's important for a much younger generation to see people that look like them.

There are Asians in the same uniforms as much as white Americans.

- [Solider] Left, left, right, left.

Left, left, left, right, left.

Color guard halt.

One, two.

- Corky you're here!

- [Corky] Hey, how you doing?

- All right, guy.

- I wanted to get you and Phil with the American flag.

- Every year, Corky's sending me photos of Chinese American veterans, the American Legion Post in Chinatown.

He'd send the photos with these handwritten Post-Its with all this information about these World War II veterans, and they were great stories.

- [Soldier] Right face.

(indistinct shouting) - [Corky] I was approached by an individual who wrote the legislation for the Congressional Gold Medal for Chinese American veterans who served during the second World War.

- [Soldier] Color guard, halt.

- I was able to gather 130 individuals to come to the American Legion, and I asked them to bring photographs of their grandfather, their father, uncle, cousin, whatever, that was a World War II veteran.

And I took a group photograph.

I went to Washington DC on my own dime, walked the halls of Congress, spoke to aides, and my photograph was given to members of Congress.

It, I think, moved a lot of congressmen at the last minute to vote for passage of the law.

It made me feel like that I was not only serving the American Legion, but I was serving my country.

And it was an extension of my civilian alternative service, going back to the 1970s.

(traffic humming) - Good evening, everyone.

We're about to start our 9/11 commemorative candlelight ceremony.

9/11 had a particularly hard and devastating impact upon our community, being just in the shadow of the Twin Towers.

- I was doing a lot of work post 9/11 related to revitalizing Chinatown, and this was through a campaign called Explore Chinatown, and I would see Corky everywhere.

And I told him I had an interest in photography, and so every weekend he would send some event that's happening and "Would you like to go?"

That's kind of how we started.

(gentle music) - Karen had a liking for photography.

At some point, she actually Googled me.

I guess she was impressed by what I do and what I represent.

A lot of times she accompanies me and I guess being somewhat older, I think I've probably influenced her in terms of what she likes to photograph.

And she's become my second soulmate, and I think it's probably made me a better person.

She's given me a reason to stop and smell the roses.

Alright, before I would just look and maybe photograph them and then move on.

(Karen laughing) - [Reporter] The Queen's Museum of Art is presenting an exhibit entitled "Asia Pacifically New York: The Photography of Corky Lee."

- I really appreciate your work.

- Thank you.

I would say in my later years, I think I probably have a little more success.

A lot of awards and accolades sort of come in after 2001.

There's been much more exposure to what I've done.

Within the next six weeks, I am in four exhibits.

I got an award for social justice from the Asian American Journalists Association.

I also got an award from Organization of Chinese Americans, or better known as OCA.

- [Announcer] Mr. Corky Lee.

- City Hall, I got a proclamation that I didn't expect.

I never know I was gonna get an award.

That was a surprise.

The awards validate what I'm doing, and I guess it's some kind of encouragement to continue.

- In my "100 New York Photographers" book, I have Amy Arbus, I have Hugh Bell, Harry Benson, Bruce Davidson, Lee Friedlander, Mary Ellen Mark, and of course Corky belongs right with them.

What resonated me with me mostly about Corky was he said that his camera was like a weapon that he used to shoot down the problems that he encountered.

I think these three images show an individual can make a difference, and that's the important thing about Corky.

The more you get into his head and his eye and his camera, the more you begin to think the way he thought.

(light music) - Behind me is what is called The Chinese Arch.

This was where one of the last Chinese labor camps was, and this is only four and a half miles from where the two locomotives met and had that historic photograph taken.

When that famous photograph was taken in 1869, that's where the Chinese were.

They were not invited to the closing party.

I decided that I should do something about it.

(light music) (train bell dinging) (dinging continues) (train horn blowing) - [Announcer] Part of the re-enactment cast over by the train!

- Re-enactment!

- The re-enactment cast.

- This is the 145th anniversary since the completion of the railroad.

- Chinese group up front!

[Corky] We're Chinese Americans!

We're Asian Pacific Americans!

So lemme hear it!

(people cheering) We came today to reclaim American history!

There's a TV series about cold cases, they always go back in the past and they try to correct the wrongs.

So, in this sense, the omission of Chinese 145 years ago is resolved through photography and it's an act of photographic justice.

(light music) We are the cousins of the freedom fighter Brothers and sisters all aound the world.

We are a part of the third world people Who will leave their stamp on America America - I think Asian Americans have come a long way, but there's still a long way to go.

In the pursuit of photographic justice, you have to keep going on because there's so much that needs to be done.

- I would like to begin by announcing some important developments in our war against the Chinese virus.

(ominous music) Kung flu!

It comes from China.

The Chinese virus.

(people cheering) - Asians around the world have reported discrimination linked to coronavirus.

The FBI recently issued a warning about a potential spike in hate crimes.

- [Reporter] I have never seen the Asian American community this scared.

- Get out of our country!

Get out!

- [Reporter] There's also been apparent attacks in New York City.

- I have friends who are legitimately afraid to go outside because they fear for their safety.

- Are we going to let people like our president use dangerous language such as the "Chinese virus," knowing well that it hurts Asian Americans?

- [Protestors] Hell no!

- [Speaker] Are we going to let people tell us to go back to our country when this is our country?

- [Protestors] Hell no!

- [Speaker] Asians are not a virus!

- [Protestors] Stop the violence!

Stop the hate!

- [Protestors] Asians are not a virus!

- In 2020, there's a worldwide pandemic.

I think the entire country is in mourning, but anyone who looks Asian, we're perceived as being scapegoats.

The restaurants in Chinatown close early because the later that they leave work, there's a higher possibility of them being a victim of a hate crime.

So, if you're Asian, you're afflicted with two viruses.

One is COVID-19, and the other one is actually hate.

The community's in a survival mode and not enough attention is being paid either by mainstream media or elected officials.

- The last time I saw Corky was a few days before New Year's, there was a press conference by the Guardian Angels.

They wanted to go into the subways to warn people about an attack on a Chinese girl.

And Corky went with them into the subways.

(soft music) - He never slowed down.

He's gotta be out there because there's things that's happening and he wants to be present for it.

(soft music continues) Wednesday, he went to a Guardian Angel event.

He said, "Don't worry, I'll be fine."

He says, "I'm wearing a face mask."

Thursday, he said he wasn't feeling well.

He had cold symptoms and body aches.

He got tested January 7th.

His breathing was difficult and they checked his oxygen level and they suggested that he needed to go to the hospital.

He had COVID.

The morning of January 27th, he passed away.

(Karen crying) (somber music) (birds chirping) (somber music continues) (somber music continues) (somber music continues) - [Bystander] Thank you Corky!

- [Bystander #2] We love you Corky!

- [Bystander #3] Thank you, Corky.

We'll always remember you.

We will continue fighting for justice, photographic justice.

(somber music continues) (somber music continues) - We want to remember one of the 431,000 people who have died of COVID in the US: Corky Lee.

Corky Lee was a legendary photographer known for documenting the life of Asian Americans.

He was born and raised- - [Reporter] His mission in life to chronicle the often forgotten members of his community.

For five decades, Corky Lee put a spotlight on every- - [Reporter #2] Bringing Asian Americans to the forefront of history through his work.

- [Reporter #3] He arguably left behind the single largest repository of photographic history of Asian Americans.

- He was an icon in the community, using his camera to set things right.

- [Reporter] It was his life purpose to tell the stories of communities overlooked by mainstream media.

- Through his photographs and the memories of the countless people who knew and loved him, he'll keep making a difference for generations to come.

(somber music) - [Corky] The Asian American movement, I believe, is still alive.

Whenever there's a crisis, more people step up to the plate.

You know, there'll be setbacks, there'll be times that you'll feel depressed about what's going on.

But you have to believe that things will get better.

If you're a photographer, keep shooting.

(somber music continues) (somber music continues) (somber music continues) (somber music continues)