By Taiyo Na
photo of Corky Lee by An Rong Xu
A tribute to Corky Lee (1947-2021), the self-described "undisputed unofficial Asian American Photographer Laureate."
I'm grateful the world had Corky for 73 years, but racism killed Corky and it’s got me fucked up. In the obituaries, they’re going to say it was COVID, and it was, because I saw him on the ICU bed over a Zoom prayer with his unshaven white stubbly hair, ventilator hanging on his jaw, but he died because he’s been spending the last five decades doing the work--that work of “photographic justice,” reimagining what racism told us we were through images of who we actually are. I’m thinking about that Toni Morrison quote that goes, “The very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work,” and I’m thinking about how he stayed undistracted for half a century, and how this pandemic didn't need to take him like this.
Twenty years ago, over pizza served on some paper plates, which was both of our dinners, he told me his wife Margie died of cancer, but she really died of stress. She would ask him, “Why do you have to be the one always out there taking the photos?” and he would reply, “Because I don’t know anyone else who’s doing it. If more people were doing what I was doing, I’d spend more time with you.” He threw his life into his work like guilt in a survivor’s bag. He gave up a lot for the work. Yes, he was beloved even in his most curmudgeonly moments, but we can also love what was in his bags beyond the photos he showed.
COVID and government neglect killed Corky. He’d been photographing our community for over 50 years. This pandemic shouldn’t have stopped him. The Viet Nam War years didn’t. NYC going bankrupt didn’t. The Reagan years didn’t. Those recessions didn’t, but the pandemic did. I wanted him to meet my newborn. Even though he wore all the PPE, COVID and government neglect killed him. Racism killed him. The work killed him.
That work where if you knew him you heard it. He told you he came up with the name “Basement Workshop” in the early ‘70s because they met in the basement in Chinatown. He told you about Grace Lee Boggs howling across the Washington Monument, and he told you about the Kochiyamas testifying at the Redress & Reparations hearings. He told you about the Peter Yew protests, the Vincent Chin demonstrations, the Grain of Sand reunion concerts, the post-9/11 portraits of the Sikh community, the Filipino World War II veterans testifying for benefits, the Promontory Summit 150th anniversary photo.
And yet he also took a photo of you while you were on the block, on the train, at your first heritage festival, your first Day of Remembrance, your first rally, your first new year, doing the dance, at the parade, singing the song, at the gallery, by the fire hydrant, through the storefront window, with the children and grandparents. He'd shoot you, get your name down on a notepad, get you a print if he could, and remember your face next time. He never forgot a face. And he'd tell you why you in that shot mattered, why you were worth the time and place.
Corky was able to tell you about it because he photographed it all. He set out every day to lift you up. He was saying without saying it that he was the one making sure we were seen. He was saying I let my wife die of cancer and I still had my day job at the printing company while going to some 7 different events around town per day because he knows we need to be seen. Behind that smile as wide as his lenses, he was saying after fifty years, they still haven’t seen our photos, our humanity, our history, and it’s happening now or they'll forget about us, and there are more photos that need to be taken, so somebody go out there and take them.
COVID, government neglect and racism killed Corky on January 27, his old friend Fay Chiang’s birthday. He joins her in that celestial ancestral place. I’m thinking about Fay’s poem where she says, “i will do this/ scan skies with eyes/ thirsting for answers.” He was saying without saying it, how all his photos came from that fury, how all his photos came from that love so on fire it can burn racism to the ground, birth a life of resilience, and create photos so vivid they’ll outlive us all.
-Taiyo Na (Taiyo Ebato) is a writer, musician and educator based in Queens, NY.
