December 29, 2005
Hello Dr. Lee, Ph.D. -- What's In A Name
A friend of mine from high school mentioned long ago that there was a Beastie Boys song titled "Dr. Lee, Ph.D." Since then, it's become one of the many nicknames that I've accumulated over the years (note - I've actually never listened to this song, though I have read the lyrics). I bring this random bit of bio-trivia up because I came across an article in the Buffalo News about another Richard Lee who also could be called Dr. Lee, Ph.D. Of course, I realize that there are many Richard Lees out there who fit this nickname, but this story is a bit different.
You see, we phenotypically share very little resemblance, but we both identify as Asian American. The Richard Lee in the photo above is not the man on the left (who is Bruce Chan) but the man on the right (seated). The Buffalo New article describes the tale of how this Richard Lee who looks racially White learned that he was one-quarter Chinese and his quest to understand the role that his grandfather played in early Chinese American immigration history. It turns out that his grandfather was one of 120 boys who came to America as part of the Chinese Educational Mission. They were sent by the Chinese government to learn about the West and to bring back this knowledge and education to China to help in its modernization. The story goes on to nicely detail the complexities of racism in early America history as it affected Asian Americans, including Dr. Lee's families.
Posted by richlee at December 29, 2005 05:03 PMvery interesting story. i don't know if you saw this but there was a very controversial Pert Plus commercial back in the late 1990s which had an Asian American man driving a Mazda Miata and people were yelling after him, "Dr. Yeh Dr. Yeh, what did you think of the Pert Plus?" (or something like that) and he says, "I rike it, I rike it!" So unbelieveable! The car also had a Dr. Yeh license plate. this was around the time of the infamous Lisa Ling with a White guy gap commercial. I never saw the commercials but was able to follow the debates online and my students told me about them.
Posted by: stine at January 4, 2006 11:10 PM