Korean Diaspora Series
  

There are millions of Asian Americans in California and a surprisingly large number of them are named Grace Lee. At an evening program, The Korea Society screened The Grace Lee project, a quirky, personal documentary that investigates why so many Asian American parents give their daughters the name, and what the name’s sociological implications may be. After the screening Winnie Tam, lecturer in Asian American studies at HunterCollege, discussed how the widespread use of names like Grace Lee shapes perceptions of Asian American women in the United States.

In a series of interviews woven with humorous monologues and reflective vignettes The Grace Lee Project meets nearly a dozen Grace Lees. Their parents named them with the expectation that they’d grow up to be dutiful, piano-playing overachievers. Some fit the mold. Others, such as a Grace Lee who was active in the Black Panther Party during the 1970s, have broken it. As the film delves into issues of shame, responsibility and parental expectations, it discovers that regardless of their path in life, all Grace Lees have faced similar obstacles in creating their own, unique place in the Asian American community.

“Does any other name shout ‘generic Asian girl’ like Grace Lee?” Winnie Tam asked rhetorically as the lights came back up. The name “Grace Lee” is just one of numerous factors that create a sense of anonymity and interchangeability around Asian women in the American imagination, Tam continued. Before Asian women even arrived in the United States, traditional Confucian culture minimized their individuality, viewing them generically as wives, daughters and sisters. The American immigration system, which based admittance on family relations, continued the tradition and today, even scholars of the Asian American experience focus on the historical importance of men, treating women as ancillary.

Tam noted that this process makes individual Asian American women invisible in contemporary American discourse. She urged the audience to consider women in their own right when they think about Asians in America.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007 

About the speaker

Winnie Tam is a Ph.D. candidate in the Cultural Studies Graduate Group at the University of California at Davis. Tam has extensively researched the politics of race and class formation in the United States and co-authored the essay The Derivative Status of Asian American Women.

About the film: website

Original Announcement:

Korean American filmmaker Grace Lee left her home in Missouri for California, she was surprised to find that almost everyone she met there knew another, usually Korean American, woman named Grace Lee. With this quirky, personal film project, she set out to find why so many Asian immigrant parents named their daughters Grace. Lee meets a host of other Grace Lees. And through humorous monologue and reflective vignette, discovers how they either fit the mold their parents intended for them—as dutiful, piano-playing overachievers—or broke it, to find their own place in the Asian American community. The screening of The Grace Lee Project will be followed by a presentation on the film by Winnie Tam, lecturer at Hunter College’s Asian American Studies Program. Tam will discuss how the film, which is at first glance the tale of an identity crisis, reveals a rich history that is intimately tied to both Korea and America, weaving a truly Korean American tale.