"When white buyers took over the homes, they discarded the toilets because they didn’t want to sit where a Chinese person had sat. She repurposed them as planters, creating a sort of memorial that became something of a tourist draw." — New York-based photojournalist Corky Lee on Connie King's infamous toilet garden in Locke, California.

In 2001, the town of Locke, the largest and most intact surviving example of an historic rural Chinese-American community in the United States, was slated to be condemned, due to water and sewer problems. Connie King lobbied the Sacramento Board of Supervisors, saying “if you remember the Chinese helped build the railroad, the Chinese built the levee, the Chinese start agriculture in California, and the Chinese built the town of Locke. You cannot condemn the town of Locke.”

In 2004, the citizens of Locke, including Connie, were finally able to purchase the land beneath their homes. When Connie passed away, volunteers paid tribute by turning her garden plot into a Chinese vegetable garden to educate the public about traditional Chinese vegetables and the history of the Pearl River Delta.