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Julia Lee

Biography

Julia Lee

Julia Lee is a Korean American writer, scholar and teacher. She is the author of OUR GANG: A Racial History of The Little Rascals and THE AMERICAN SLAVE NARRATIVE AND THE VICTORIAN NOVEL, as well as the novel BY THE BOOK, which was published under the pen name Julia Sonneborn, and her memoir, BITING THE HAND: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America. She is an associate professor of English at Loyola Marymount University, where she teaches African American and Caribbean literature. She lives with her family in Los Angeles.

Julia Lee

Books by Julia Lee

Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America
by Julia Lee - Memoir, Nonfiction

When Julia Lee was 15, her hometown went up in smoke during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The daughter of Korean immigrant store owners in a predominantly Black neighborhood, Julia was taught to be grateful for the privilege afforded to her. However, the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King, following the murder of Latasha Harlins by a Korean shopkeeper, forced Julia to question her racial identity and complicity. She was neither Black nor white. So who was she? This question would follow Julia for years to come. It was only when she began a PhD in English that she found answers --- not in the Brontës or Austen, as Julia had planned, but rather in the brilliant prose of writers like James Baldwin and Toni Morrison.