In 1903, Donald Young’s great-grandfather signed an immigration document for his son with an “X.” He couldn’t read or write English, but the record survived as a remnant of the Chinese Exclusion Act, proof of a journey just beginning. Alongside it was the story of his other grandfather, detained for nine months at Angel Island, who refused to ever speak of the experience. For over thirty years, Young has worked between the tension of those two stories.
“This kind of juxtaposition of how you can learn a story and tell a story — and stories being too painful,” Young reflects. “That’s the valley that we work in.”
A fourth-generation Chinese American and San Franciscan, Young has uncovered family artifacts and records at Angel Island and the National Archives, and found in them a calling. He has since then become the storyteller of a larger family tree: the Asian American community.
As Executive Director of the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), Young serves as the field’s trusted connector, the person filmmakers, funders, and institutions call when a story about the Asian American experience needs to get made, and made right. As Christine Chen, founding executive director of Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote, puts it, “All roads lead to Don Young.”
At CAAM, Young has raised over $15 million in program funding, executive produced the Peabody Award-winning PBS series “Asian Americans,” and mentored generations of filmmakers. He is a member of both the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Young came to this work by way of UC Santa Barbara, where a chance encounter with film program materials in a campus hallway pulled him away from marine biology. Inspired by the burgeoning of Asian American filmmakers in the 1980s like Wayne Wang, Felicia Lowe, Steven Okazaki, and Loni Ding, he double-majored in film and anthropology, graduating with honors.
Though he has produced many acclaimed films, filmmaking was never the end goal. “People always thought that I wanted to be a filmmaker,” Young says, “but it was more important to me to build a community that could tell stories.” This conviction is what draws him to Committee of 100, whose research and storytelling — like Young’s — have the power to shape policies and narratives that define the Asian American community.
Young has been a board member and advisor for organizations working toward public good, including the Redford Center, California Humanities, the Chinese Culture Foundation of San Francisco. He is a founding member of Beyond Inclusion. He has also served as awards judge and panelist for organizations including the Sundance Institute, the Independent Television Service, and the International Documentary Association
For Young, the stakes have never been higher — or the opportunity larger. “Asian American narratives aren’t just for Asian Americans,” Young says. “Right now, our stories and the unique skills we’ve developed as Asian Americans need to go further.”
