My parents and older brother moved to the United States in the early 1960s. A few years later, I was born in Hartford, CT, in 1967, with my younger brother coming along two years later. Shortly thereafter, we settled in a suburb of Hartford, South Windsor, for the remainder of our childhood.
On Friday, January 12, 1973, my parents and older brother became naturalized US citizens. Family legend has it that a few years earlier my father interviewed for a job at a prospective employer’s home. My father was told by the employer that he would “never own a home like this.” Needless to say, my father did not get the job.
He did, however, save the family money and buy that gentleman’s home three years later.
I am the middle of three boys. Six years separate me from the eldest, two from the youngest. For the first time since our childhood, this strip has brought me and my younger brother together in collaboration in ways I could not have imagined. More on that later.
Our parents spent the majority of our childhood working two jobs. Our father worked at a small local advertising company and our mother worked at Aetna Life and Casualty. After their day jobs, they would meet and work at our Chinese restaurant. That restaurant soon gave way to our “Oriental” grocery store, and, finally, our FamiLee dry cleaners. The dry cleaners would become their primary occupation in their later years.
Our Halmoni (my dad’s mother) basically raised us. I think our experience growing up in America is not dissimilar from that of most immigrant families. Stories of racism and oppression, unfortunately, are universal.
The dual pandemic and social reckoning of 2020/21 left me feeling both raw and vulnerable. The rise in anti-Asian violence overwhelmed me. I sought refuge in my art, the art from my youth: the comics.
I am not exactly sure how it all started. It was a confluence of factors, but the next thing I knew I had six characters created and a dozen ideas. The perfect Sunday comic. But the ideas wouldn’t stop. The world wouldn’t stop.
I found myself texting with my little brother (Rich M. Lee, Ph.D., a.k.a. Diggy) almost daily. Diggy is a professor at the University of Minnesota focusing on aspects of culture, ethnicity, and race. Diggy was able to distill my feelings into words for The Other Ones in ways that I could not. He gave text to my images, content to my form. It has become a most unexpected collaboration for two brothers in their 50s.
So, it is with this intention that we move forward with The Other Ones with hopes to teach, inspire, and create positive cultural change.
theotheronesbylee.wordpress.com 