Mary Paik Lee (Paik Kuang Sun) was born in the Korean Empire on August 17, 1900, and was baptized by American Presbyterian minister Dr. Samuel Austin Moffett, one of the first American Presbyterian missionaries to come to Korea. In 1905, her family left Korea for Hawaii, fleeing the Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula. Late in her life, Mary wrote a memoir, recounting her family’s struggles in Hawaii and then California, where they faced discrimination and poverty, all while striving to make a better life and holding firm to their Presbyterian faith.

I’m joined in this episode by historian Dr. Jane Hong, author of Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion, who helps contextualize Mary’s story in the larger story of Asian immigration to the United States in the 20th Century.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. Image Credit: “Mr. and Mrs. H. M. Lee with their first son, Henry, in Anaheim, 1926,” from family photo albums. 

 

Sources:

• Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America, by Mary Paik Lee and Sucheng Chan, with a Forward by David K. Yoo, University of Washington Press, 2019.
• “History of Korean Immigration to America, from 1903 to Present,” Boston University School of Theology: Boston Korean Diaspora Project.
• “Russo-Japanese War,” History.com, March 23, 2018 (Updated April 9, 2021).

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