Upper Midwest Literary Archives: https:\/\/libnews.umn.edu\/2026\/03\/creating-poetry-and-community-women-writers-in-umn-libraries-archives\/<\/p>\n
\u201cLee is a poet, essayist, memoirist, and visual artist, who grew up in South Minneapolis in the \u201860s and \u201870s. Her father was Chinese, and her mother was Black. But Lee and her mother were white-passing. For most of her life, her Black family was hidden from her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew I could be Chinese if I needed to, if I was pressured, according to Mom, but I could not tell anyone I was Black,\u201d Lee wrote for UMLA. Her poetry collection \u201cChinese Blackbird,\u201d published in 2002, is a moving reflection on her mixed-race heritage, class, gender, and sexuality.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer writing is very raw and very, very vulnerable and passionate,\u201d McBrien said. \u201cCulture and ethnicity, what you\u2019re raised as, what you\u2019re viewed as, and how you feel, how do all these things intersect?\u201d<\/p>\n
https:\/\/archives.lib.umn.edu\/repositories\/16\/resources\/11877<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Upper Midwest Literary Archives: https:\/\/libnews.umn.edu\/2026\/03\/creating-poetry-and-community-women-writers-in-umn-libraries-archives\/ \u201cLee is a poet, essayist, memoirist, and visual artist, who grew up in South Minneapolis in the \u201860s and \u201870s. Her father was Chinese, and her mother was Black. But Lee and her mother were white-passing. For most of her life, her Black family was …<\/p>\n