America ReFramed

The Grace Lee Project (4x14)

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Growing up in Missouri, award-­winning Korean American filmmaker Grace Lee was the only “Grace Lee” she knew. Upon moving to New York and then California, she discovered quite the opposite. In her quest to uncover how the Western name “Grace” became ubiquitous among Asian Americans, the filmmaker seeks out and speaks with many subjects named Grace Lee, soon learning the name’s Hollywood origins, as well as its Christian and missionary roots. Through an array of first-person interviews, she finds that the name carries with it a stereotype of the model minority — or rather a “quiet, well-­behaved overachiever.” While a wide range of women, including a Hawai’i based television anchor, could fit a certain image of the name, others would break that mold.