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Quiet Odyssey

A Pioneer Korean Woman in America
  • Mary Paik Lee
  • Edited by: Sucheng Chan and Sucheng Chan
  • Preface by: David K. Yoo and David K. Yoo
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2019
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About this book

Mary Paik Lee left her native country in 1905, traveling with her parents as a political refugee after Japan imposed control over Korea. Her father worked in the sugar plantations of Hawaii briefly before taking his family to California. They shared the poverty-stricken existence endured by thousands of Asian immigrants in the early twentieth century, working as farm laborers, cooks, janitors, and miners. Lee recounts racism on the playground and the ravages of mercury mining on her father’s health, but also entrepreneurial successes and hardships surmounted with grace.

With a new foreword by David K. Yoo, this edition reintroduces Quiet Odyssey to readers interested in Asian American history and immigration studies. The volume includes thirty illustrations and a comprehensive introduction and bibliographic essay by respected scholar Sucheng Chan, who collaborated closely with Lee to edit the biography and ensure the work was true to the author’s intended vision. This award-winning book provides a compelling firsthand account of early Korean American history and continues to be an essential work in Asian American studies.

Author / Editor information

Contributor: Mary Paik Lee Mary Paik Lee (1900–1995) is the author of Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America. --- Contributor: Sucheng Chan Sucheng Chan is Professor Emeritus, Department of Asian American Studies, at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has authored and edited several books, most recently Chinese Americans and the Politics of Race and Culture (co-editor with Madeline Y. Hsu, Temple, 2008); The Vietnamese American 1.5 Generation (editor, Temple, 2006), Chinese American Transnationalism: The Flow of People, Resources (editor, Temple, 2005); and In Defense of Asian American Studies: The Politics of Teaching and Program Building (Illinois, 2005). --- Contributor: David K. Yoo David K. Yoo is Professor of Asian American Studies and History, and Vice Provost, Institute of American Cultures, at UCLA. He is the author of Contentious Spirits: Religion in Korean American History, 1903-1945 (Stanford University Press, 2010) and Growing Up Nisei: Race, Generation, and Culture Among Japanese Americans of California, 1924-1949 (University of Illinois Press, 2000). He has also co-edited several volumes, including The Oxford Handbook of Asian American History (with Eiichiro Azuma, Oxford University Press, 2016).

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    Frontmatter

    i
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    CONTENTS

    vii
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    Foreword

    ix
    David K. Yoo
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    Preface

    xiii
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    Acknowledgments

    xix
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    Introduction

    xxi
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    1. Origins

    1
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    2. Oahu and Riverside

    9
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    3. Claremont and Colusa

    21
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    4. Roberts Island

    27
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    5. Idria

    34
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    6. Hollister

    43
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    7. Willows

    52
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    8. Marriage

    62
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    9. Growing Rice

    68
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    10. Selling Produce

    74
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    11. Farming Again

    85
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    12. World War II

    94
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    13. Discrimination

    101
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    14. Sons

    110
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    15. Old Age

    117
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    16. Reflections

    131
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    Appendix A. The Historiographer’s Role

    135
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    Appendix B. Operating a Korean American Family Farm

    169
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    Appendix C. Korean Rice Growers in the Sacramento Valley

    173
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    Bibliographic Essay

    179
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
December 11, 2024
eBook ISBN:
9780295746746
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
264
https://doi.org/10.1515/9780295746746
eBook ISBN: 9780295746746
Keywords for this book
Asian American Studies; Biography; Autobiography; and Memoir
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
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