Judy Yung, S.F. Chinatown native and early scholar of Chinese language American life, dies at 74

As a librarian working within the Chinatown public library department in the course of the early 1970s, Judy Yung found a serious gap within the assortment, and in scholarship usually. There have been no students on the expertise of Chinese language American girls in extraordinary life.

So, Yung stop her job to grow to be that scholar.

In her 40s, she went again and bought her doctorate in ethnic research at UC Berkeley. She then spent two years touring the nation, accumulating oral histories, on her method to turning into a tenured professor of American Research at UC Santa Cruz, the place she constructed from scratch a program in Asian American research.

She additionally wrote, co-wrote or edited eight nonfiction books, most prominently the bestseller “Unbound Toes: A Social Historical past of Chinese language Ladies in San Francisco,” printed in 1995.

Born in San Francisco’s Chinatown on Jan. 25, 1946, Yung died the place she began, on Dec. 14, after struggling a fall at dwelling, based on her sister, Sandy Lee of San Francisco. She was 74.

“Judy had an unbelievable impression each throughout her life and forever,’’ stated Ruthanne Lum McCunn, a San Francisco creator of historic fiction. “Due to her and the work she did in reclaiming the lives of Chinese language American girls, we’ve got a extra full image and understanding of the historical past of Chinese language in America.”

The daughter of immigrants from Guangdong Province, Yung was the fifth of six kids born right into a two-room Chinatown tenement with a neighborhood toilet and kitchen. Cantonese was the primary language at dwelling, and there was no second language. Her father was a union janitor in a Nob Hill resort and her mom stitched garments in Chinatown. The children had been referred to by quantity, and Yung was known as “Quantity 5” by each mother and father.

Yung took it upon herself to grow to be each bilingual and bi-literate, attending public college by day and Chinese language college at evening, as was custom. She turned down an opportunity to attend Lowell Excessive Faculty, as a way to keep near dwelling, and was salutatorian at Galileo, class of 1963. She superior to San Francisco State School (because it was then identified) the place she earned her bachelor of arts diploma in 1967 with a double main in Chinese language research and English literature. From there she crossed the bay to get a grasp’s in library science from UC Berkeley.

This bought her the job with the San Francisco Public Library that was to be her launching pad. After a couple of years she left to grow to be affiliate editor of the bilingual weekly East West: Chinese language American Journal.

Yung then took a job on the Oakland Public Library the place she is credited with opening the primary Asian public library in America, on the Park Boulevard department, in 1976.

4 years later she printed her first guide, a collaboration with poet Ginny Lim and historian Him Mark Lai, titled “Island: Poetry and Historical past of Chinese language Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940,” printed in 1980.

“Her translations of the poems from Angel Island was a rare effort and a lovely guide that nobody had thought to do earlier than,” stated Bettina Fay Aptheker, professor of feminist research emerita at UC Santa Cruz.

That guide result in a complementary pictures exhibition on the Chinese language Tradition Heart in San Francisco, titled “Chinese language Ladies of America: A Pictorial Historical past,” in 1983. The exhibition ran for 4 months after which traveled to neighborhood organizations and historic societies across the nation.

“It was so thrilling to lastly have an acknowledgment of the ladies who struggled each independently and alongside their husbands to construct communities all throughout the US,” says McCunn, who remembers going to exhibits within the Vacation Inn (now a Hilton) in Chinatown, the place the Chinese language Tradition Heart stays. “Judy wrote the proposal to get the grant cash, curated the exhibit and wrote the catalog. She did all of it.”

In 1990, Yung was employed as an assistant professor within the American Research Division at UC Santa Cruz. She shortly rose to tenured professor and have become chair of the division. By the point of her retirement in 2004, she had earned about each instructing award provided at UC Santa Cruz and had been named graduation speaker 4 instances.

“She was only a fantastic colleague,” stated Aptheker, who served on the Committee on Affirmative Motion and Variety with Yung. “She inaugurated the concept of programs in Asian American research at UCSC and mentored I don’t know what number of college students. She was heat and the scholars adored her.”

Yung’s retirement solely elevated her literary output. In 2010, Yung and historian Erika Lee co-wrote “Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America,” to commemorate the centennial of the processing station in San Francisco Bay.

After spending her profession interviewing girls, Yung determined to incorporate males in her guide challenge, “Chinese language American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Current.” It paid off in a number of methods. Whereas interviewing Asian American males who had served within the U.S. Military and been taken prisoners of conflict, she met Eddie Fung, a fellow child from Chinatown.

When she advised her sisters she was marrying one among her topics, they assumed “he had been in Vietnam or the Korean Battle,” stated Lee. However he’d been in World Battle II. She was 56 and he was 81 after they married in 2003.

After Fung died in 2018, Yung moved again to San Francisco, to be close to her 4 older sisters, taking an condo throughout from Kezar Stadium.

Her final challenge was to co-curate an exhibition on the Chinese language in California on the California Museum in Sacramento. That present was closed by COVID-19.

“She was one of the best buddy an individual might hope for,” stated McCunn, “and he or she by no means stop being a librarian.”

Yung was predeceased by her youthful brother Warren (Quantity 6). Survivors embrace sisters Sharon Lee and Sandy Lee, each of San Francisco; Virginia Quong of South San Francisco and Patricia Chin of Castro Valley (Numbers 1-4).

A celebration of her life shall be held after the pandemic.