Judy Yung was the fifth daughter of six children born to immigrant parents from China. She grew up in
San Francisco Chinatown, where her father worked as a janitor and her mother as a seamstress to support the family. Yung was able to acquire a bilingual education by attending both public school and Chinese language school for ten years. She received a B.A. in English Literature and Chinese Language from
San Francisco State University in 1967 and a Masters in Library Science from the
University of California, Berkeley the next year. Later, she went back to obtain her Ph.D. (1994) in Ethnic Studies from the
University of California, Berkeley. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Yung worked as librarian for the Chinatown branch of the
San Francisco Public Library and later established the first Asian public library in America at the Park Boulevard branch of the
Oakland Public Library, pioneering the development of Asian language materials and Asian American interest collections in the public library to better serve the Asian American community. She also spent four years working as associate editor of the
East West newspaper. Yung appears in the 2021 documentary
The Six, in which she explains the significance of a Chinese poem written by
RMS Titanic survivor Fong Wing Sun, and Chinese poetry written by Chinese immigrants while being held at
Angel Island in the 1920s and 1930s. She died on December 14, 2020, of complications from a fall at her home. She was 74 years old. ==Awards==