Identifying as Grace Lee
During the making of THE GRACE LEE PROJECT, both my best hopes and worst fears were confirmed and there were many surprises along the way. I learned what makes each of the Grace Lees that I met unique and what binds us all together.(Grace Lee)
In the film The Grace Lee Project , the director Grace Lees explores identity politics by uncovering what her common name means in the world of the stereotyped Asian American woman that she has difficulty identifying with. The question that Grace frequently fouces on is that of how each Grace Lee distinguishes themselves and in a broader context how they identify themselves as well. What Grace finds is that she is not alone in her identity crisis that is related to her name; on her journey she finds a community of women who also struggle with the seterotype of Asian American women and who they themselves really are.
While Grace finds many common experiences with the women she meets with she also uncovers various differences in lives of some very remarkable women. One of these women is Grace Lee Boggs, a social activist in the black community of Detroit. Grace Lee Boggs was apart of the Civil Rights movement and leaves the director Grace with her own view that Identity is not in your name but in the things you do. Grace focuses more closely on the things that other Grace Lees do, which moves the documentary from humerous clips on the stereotype of Grace Lees to a captive story telling of the lives of each individual Grace. With such as shift in the documentary each Grace gains their own identity. I think this documentary gives Grace Lee identity by using multideminsonal conceptual analysis to uncover the struggle that all people face when attempting to set themselves apart for the social constructed stereotype they are placed in. Many different aspects of each Grace Lees' life were exposed to unfold a comprehensive image and identity that goes beyond just a name.