Before becoming the founding librarian of the Asian Community Library, Judy Yung had served as an associate editor at East/West, a San Francisco Chinatown-based paper that served English- and Chinese-speaking audiences by publishing in both languages and covering Chinatown news as well as U.S. and international news related to Asians and Asian-Americans. As an associate editor, she had served as a reporter for the paper while also assisting with its production.
Fittingly, East/West covered the opening of the Asian Community Library through a profile of Yung. With the opening set to take place on March 1, 1976, the newspaper covered the event three weeks in advance, so as to publicize it to the larger Bay Area audience.
The article highlights Judy Yung’s working-class roots — how she had grown up in a family of eight in a two-room apartment, with a father who worked as a janitor and a mother who worked as a seamstress — and also the opportunities that she opened up for herself through her dedication to her own education.
In the profile, Yung articulates her sense of the mission of the new Asian Community Library: “We must meet community needs with books, magazines, films, records, etc., of importance to them….The staff must have the language skills, life style, and sensitivity that the Asian communities can relate to.”
