Mary Paik Lee (August 17, 1900 – February 14, 1995 ) was a Korean American writer most known for her autobiography, Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America. She was born in the Korean Empire and moved to the United States in 1905, eventually settling in Riverside, California in 1906. Over the course of her life, Lee, her parents, and her husband would suffer many hardships. Her memoir, Quiet Odyssey, was published in 1990. It is noted for being one of the few memoirs by an Asian American woman, and the only memoir by a Korean American woman that covers the majority of the twentieth century. She provides an important cultural viewpoint on the last century, from the perspective of one of America's first Korean pioneers.

Biography

Lee was born Paek Kuang-Sun in Pyongyang (now the capital of North Korea) in the Korean Empire in 1900. Her father, Paik Sin Koo, came from a line of ministers and teachers. They moved to Hawaii in 1905 in response to the forced annexation of Korea by the Japanese Empire. When they arrived in Hawaii, her father became a contract laborer on a sugar plantation. After facing extreme discrimination, they moved to Riverside, California in 1906. The Paik family arrived in Riverside without much money or any immediate plans. After conferring with friends, they decided that Lee's mother could cook for about 30 men. Her father didn't want her to work, but they did not have much choice. They had to borrow materials from Chinese immigrants in order to start the cooking business. On Saturdays, Mary would go to the slaughterhouse and collect animal organs that the butchers threw out and thought not appropriate to sell. She competed with Mexican children for the preferred pieces of meat while the butchers laughed at them. At one point, she told her father that she did not want to continue going because they were making fun of her but her father told her to be grateful that the butchers threw out the meat, or else they would starve. When Mary was old enough, she went to school. On her first day, she was intimidated by a group of girls who danced around her in the playground chanting “ Ching chong Chinaman”. She was also frightened when the teacher welcomed her so she ran back home. She also found out that their Korean names were hard to remember so she decided to give her younger siblings American names while they were young. She and her older brother decided that it was too late for them to have American names. She published her biography in 1990 and died in San Francisco, California in 1995.

Personal life

Mary married H.M. Lee and had 3 sons. She also continued to provide assistance to her parents and siblings. Though there was a constant battle with prejudice and discrimination, she worked hard to provide.