She was born in the Korean Empire and moved to the United States in 1905, eventually settling in Riverside, California, in 1906.

She provides an important cultural viewpoint on the last century, from the perspective of one of America's first Korean pioneers.

Lee was born Paek Kuang-Sun in Pyongyang (now the capital of North Korea) in the Korean Empire in 1900.

They moved to Hawaii in 1905 in response to the forced annexation of Korea by the Japanese Empire.

[6] On Saturdays, Mary would go to the slaughterhouse and collect animal organs that the butchers threw out and thought not appropriate to sell.

She competed with Mexican children for the preferred pieces of meat while the butchers laughed at them.

On her first day, she was intimidated by a group of girls who danced around her in the playground chanting “Ching chong Chinaman”.

"Constructing 'Home' in Mary Paik Lee's Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America."