Quiet Odyssey bookcover

Quiet Odyssey

A Pioneer Korean Woman in America

Mary Paik Lee 

(Author)

Sucheng Chan 

(Editor)

David K. Yoo 

(Foreword by)
4.9/5.0
21,000+ Reviews
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Description

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.

Product Details

PublisherUniversity of Washington Press
Publish DateNovember 04, 2019
Pages264
LanguageEnglish
TypeBook iconPaperback / softback
EAN/UPC9780295746722
Dimensions8.9 X 6.0 X 0.6 inches | 0.8 pounds

About the Author

Mary Paik Lee (1900-1995) is the author of Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America.
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).
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).

Reviews

Winner of the 1991 Outstanding Book Award from the Association for Asian American Studies

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