Quiet Odyssey
Mary Paik Lee's Quiet Odyssey is the story of the silent struggles of many immigrant Americans, who have had to endure pain, poverty, and prejudice in order to form a sense of community and identity. Lee's book in particular comprises the memoirs of one first-generation Korean-American woman, whose country's struggle with independence and national identity mirrored her own. Reflecting on her eighty-five years of life, Lee notes, "I am free of cares and worry and am just trying to relax and enjoy what little time is left. I attend a church regularly where most of the members are black, because it is there I feel most comfortable," (130). Lee's encounter with cultures other than her own: from the dominant European cultures in America to other immigrant and minority groups underscore her triumphs retaining selfhood and cultural identity. Moreover, having moved from state to state and town to town during the course of her long life, the author of Quiet Odyssey encountered the rich highs and devastating lows that characterized American culture throughout the twentieth century and which changed with each successive generation. Quiet Odyssey illustrates three main qualities of the twentieth-century Korean-American experience: first, Lee describes the struggle to retain cultural pride and national identity in the midst of an overpowering paradigm that promotes the "melting pot" mentality; second, Lee recounts the particularities of the Korean-American female experience, an experience which can be wrought with a particularly hard set of circumstances; and third, Lee's personal experiences demonstrate how women of all ethnicities can embark on their own quiet odysseys, to communicate their tales with pride and hope.
Embracing the roots and traditions of her homeland, Lee, like many Koreans, tried to adapt to American life without making the sacrifices that entail total assimilation. The editor of Quiet Odyssey, who came across Mary Paik Lee's autobiography quite by accident, notes that "Korean-American youngsters like Mary Paik Lee seem not to have shared the desperate desire of Chinese and Japanese-American children ... To 'prove' how American they were," (lix-lx). Sucheng Chan's introductory statement serves a dual purpose: it both illustrates the unique fabric of Korean-American culture while it also serves to bring out the central and core aspects of that culture's "quiet odyssey." Namely, the quiet odyssey entails a journey toward self-discovery that refuses to be overwhelmed by the dominant culture. However, assimilation was not an option for early Korean immigrants. As Mary Paik Lee notes, segregation and overt racism was a more common condition of early twentieth-century immigrant life in America. Lee's father wisely explained to young Mary that "anything new and strange causes some fear at first, so ridicule and violence often result," (12). His advice to his family would remain with Mary Paik Lee throughout the remainder of her life: to "study hard and learn to show Americans that we were just as good as they are," (14). Proving social equality was nearly impossible throughout much of the twentieth century. Not only were all immigrants summarily dismissed as being inferior and unworthy by whites, but they were lumped together into one broad unnamable category. Among Mary Paik Lee's earliest memories include that of her and her family being thrust into uncomfortable living and labor conditions. "In those days," the author states, "Orientals and others were not allowed to live in town with the white people. The Japanese, Chinese and Mexicans each had their own little settlement outside of town," (14). Thus, early Korean-American immigrant experiences did not demand of them instant assimilation because they were treated as inferiors. Only after the notion of the American Dream began to infuse the immigrant consciousness did immigrants come to believe that they too could share a piece of American pie. Koreans originally come to America to escape political and economic hardships in their home country. Thus, in spite of their inferior social, political, and legal status in the early part of the twentieth century, Koreans readily embraced their new lives...
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