Mary Paik Lee

Mary Paik Lee (1900-1995) was born Paik Kuang Sun in Pyongyang, the capital of what is now North Korea. She left Korea with her family in 1905 to escape the Japanese oppression of Korea, arriving in Hawai’i in May 1905, where her father worked as a sugar cane plantation laborer. In December 1906, the family moved to California where Paik Lee would live the rest of her life. Even though Paik Lee’s father was part of the educated elite in Korea, in the new world, both her parents worked as farm laborers, tenant farmers, cooks, and janitors, and the family always took in laundry.

Quiet Odyssey is one of the very few memoirs by an Asian American woman, and the only by a Korean American woman that spans the majority of the 20 th century, from young girlhood to advanced age. While the book is important as a historical document, it is also an engaging story of one of the very first Korean American pioneers. Together with her family, Paik Lee faced extreme hardships, often living in abject poverty. Her story bears witness to a true role model who survives the trials of racism throughout her life with grace and humor.