GRACE LEE BOGGS: An Activist's Life Postcard from Grace Lee Boggs father's Chinese Restaurant. "I was born above my father's Chinese American restaurant in downtown Providence, Rhode Island on June 27, 1915. When I cried the waiters used to say, 'Leave her on the hillside to die. She's only a girl.' Later they told me this as a kind of joke. But for me, even as a child it was no laughing matter." -- Grace Lee Boggs, LIVING FOR CHANGE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY