Born in 1946 and raised in San Francisco Chinatown, Judy Yung earned her B.A. in English Literature and Chinese Language from SF State University. Yung was the fifth daughter of six children of immigrant parents from Guangdong Province who were detained at Angel Island. Her father was a union janitor in a Nob Hill hotel and her mother stitched clothes in Chinatown. Yung made an effort to become both bilingual and bi-literate in her household the language of Cantonese.
At UC Berkeley, she earned her Master's in Library Science at the UC Berkeley School of Librarianship, a predecessor to the School of Information, and Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies. Afterwards, Yung joined the Chinatown branch of the San Francisco Public Library—the first person of Chinese descent to head that branch—and then went on to develop the Asian branch of the Oakland Public Library. In 1980, Yung co-published Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940. With a federal grant from the Women’s Educational Equity Program, she directed the Chinese Women of America Research Project, which resulted in a photography exhibition at the Chinese Culture Center in San Francisco.
From 1990-2004, Yung was a professor in the American Studies Department at UC Santa Cruz where she is credited with inaugurating the first courses in Asian American Studies at UCSC. All together, Yung wrote, co-wrote, or edited eight nonfiction books, including the bestseller “Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco,” published in 1995. Her many awards include being National Women’s History Month Honoree in 2015; the 2007 Annie Soo Spirit Award from Chinese Historical Society of America; and the Lifetime Achievement Award, Association for Asian American Studies in 2006.
Contributed by Berkeley School of Information
Read more:
SF Chronicle article on Judy Yung, SF Chinatown Native and Scholar
American Historical Association newsmagazine In Memorium
Judy Yung in the Berkeley Revolution archives