Connie Young Yu

Connie Young Yu (born June 19, 1941) is a Chinese American writer, activist, historian, and lecturer.

She has written and contributed to many articles and books, notably including Profiles in Excellence: Peninsula Chinese Americans, Chinatown San Jose, U.S.A. , and Voices from the Railroad: Stories by Descendants of Chinese Railroad Workers. Through her work, she uncovers forgotten or hidden facets of Chinese and Asian American history.

Yu played a central role in getting the Angel Island Immigration Station designated a National Historic Landmark, therefore preserving the detention barracks that had Chinese poems carved on the walls.

Early life Yu was born in Los Angeles, California on June 19, 1941. She spent the first six years of her life in Whittier, California. He left to fight in World War II when she was six months old, and returned when she was four. In 1947, Yu and her family moved to Chinatown in San Francisco, California where she grew up with her older sister, Janey Young Cheu, and younger brother, Alfred John Young. Yu's grandparents lived with the family in San Francisco as well.

Growing up, Yu was surrounded by the robust Chinese American community in San Francisco and was influenced by the many generations of Chinese Americans who were family friends and would regularly visit her family and home. Her initial work with the AACI was critical to Asian American and minority representation in school textbooks.

In 1970, after California State Park Ranger Alexander Weiss discovered Chinese poems carved on the walls of Angel Island Immigration Station, Yu worked to designate the site as a National Historic Landmark. She helped found the Angel Island Immigration Station Historical Advisory Committee in 1974. She is also a Trustee Emeritus Board member of the Chinese Historical Society of America.

Yu spoke on behalf of all the descendants of Chinese Transcontinental Railroad workers at the United States Department of Labor induction of the Chinese Railroad Workers into the Labor Hall of Honor on May 9, 2014.

On April 24, 2016, she was presented the State of California's 13th Senate District "Woman of the Year" award by Senator Jerry Hill at Folger Stables Speakers Series in Woodside, California.

At the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 2019, Connie Young Yu gave the opening Commencement speech at Promontory Point, Utah's "Golden Spike" Ceremony.

Most recently in 2021, she publicly co-accepted an apology to Chinese Americans by the City of San Jose, California for its violence, terrorism, and systemic racism towards Chinese in that city during the latter part of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Centuries.

In addition to her activism and writing, Yu has taught fencing for over 25 years at the Fencing Center of San Jose, California Chinatown San Jose, U.S.A. (1991) "Lee Wong Sang, Laying Tracks to Follow" in Voices from the Railroad: Stories by Descendants of Chinese Railroad Workers (2019)