Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed tomorrow, Tuesday, May 10: THE GRACE LEE PROJECT
Grace Lee’s consideration of names, culture, and identity debuted at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival in 2005. Screenings followed at SXSW, Los Angeles, Pusan, St Louis, Hawaii, New York Asian American, and Toronto Reel Asian, among other events. It comes to America ReFramed as part of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
Growing up in the midwest, Lee considered herself to be unique – hers was the only Korean-American family that she knew. It wasn’t until she relocated to New York and California that she learned that she was hardly the only “Grace Lee” – everyone she met seemed to have previously met one, and every Grace Lee was described in the same nice, smart stereotypical Asian girl way. The filmmaker embarks on a personal and often humorous quest to talk to other Grace Lees around the US in order to examine the truth behind the stereotype and find those who break the mold, among them the committed social activist Grace Lee Boggs, who would later become the standalone subject of Lee’s AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY. Along the way she uncovers dual origins for her name’s ubiquity in both Hollywood’s glamorous past and in the influence of Christianity on Asian American immigrant communities, and celebrates a more complex understanding of Asian American female identity.
what (not) to doc 