Dana Bruce Young Obituary
Dana Bruce Young
**August 22, 1938 – January 20, 2024**
Dana Bruce Young, a gifted scholar, teacher, musician, writer, translator, and devoted keeper of family history, died in Austin, Texas, on January 20, 2024\. He was 85\.
Dana was born in Dallas, Texas, on August 22, 1938, to Addison Young and Mary Joe Reeves Young\. He was raised in Midland, Texas, where his remarkable musical and intellectual abilities became evident at an early age\.
As a student at Midland Senior High School, Dana was an accomplished pianist\. In 1955, he won the piano competition of the Midland Symphony and Chorus Association\. He subsequently appeared as a soloist with the Midland Symphony, performing Haydn’s *Concerto in D Major for Piano and Orchestra* in the Midland High School Auditorium\. He studied piano with Mrs\. Benton Howell and graduated from Midland Senior High School in 1956\.
Dana continued his education at Yale College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, *magna cum laude*, in 1960\. He remained at Yale and received a Master of Arts degree in Japanese Studies in 1962\. From 1962 to 1964, he pursued further studies in the Department of Far Eastern Languages at the Harvard Graduate School\.
Dana received an NDEA\-related Fulbright\-Hays award for study in Japan from 1964 to 1966\. During his two years in Tokyo, he developed a deep command of both modern and literary Japanese and organized an English conversation class for Japanese students at Gakushuin University\.
From 1966 to 1973, Dana served as an assistant professor at Cornell and Stanford universities, teaching Japanese language and literature\. At Stanford, he developed courses intended to broaden interest in Asian languages and cultures, advised graduate students, and helped administer the university’s East Asian Regional Studies program\. He also presented a scholarly paper on irony at the 1970 convention of the Association for Asian Studies in San Francisco\.
Dana’s deepest scholarly passion was *The Tale of Genji*, the great work of classical Japanese literature attributed to Murasaki Shikibu\. He devoted much of his working life to studying the text and translating it into English\. Although he never completed the translation, it remained a lifelong intellectual endeavor—one that reflected his command of literary Japanese, his patience as a scholar, and his abiding love of Japanese language and culture\. His other translation work included *The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter* and stories by Ihara Saikaku\.
Dana was also an accomplished historical researcher and writer\. His article, “The Voyage of the Kanrin Maru to San Francisco, 1860,” was published in *California History* in 1983\.
His scholarship was closely connected to his own family history\. Dana’s grandfather, Yung\-Kwai, came to the United States as one of the young students of the Chinese Educational Mission of 1872–1881 and later graduated from Yale College in 1884\. Dana preserved and transcribed his grandfather’s memoir, *Recollections of the Chinese Educational Mission*, helping ensure that this important firsthand account would be available to future generations\.
Together with Bruce Chan, Dana co\-created and administered CEM Connections, an extensive online resource devoted to the students, families, schools, and history of the Chinese Educational Mission\. Through this work, Dana helped descendants and scholars throughout the world discover and understand this remarkable chapter in Chinese and American history\.
In September 2001, during Yale University’s Tercentennial, Dana returned to Yale as a speaker at the conference “Yung Wing and the Chinese Educational Mission, 1872–1881\.” His presentation, “Yung Kwai’s Memoir of the Chinese Educational Mission,” brought his grandfather’s experiences before a new generation of scholars and descendants\.
Dana’s life joined together many worlds: Texas and New England, America and Asia, music and literature, teaching and historical preservation\. He will be remembered for his keen mind, his musicianship, his cross\-cultural understanding, and his lifelong commitment to preserving and sharing the stories entrusted to him\.
Dana was preceded in death by his parents, Addison Young and Mary Joe Reeves Young\.
He is survived by his brother, Joe Addison Young of Austin, Texas; his nephew, Frederick Kwai Young of College Grove, Tennessee; and his nieces, Stephanie Louise Young of Safety Harbor, Florida, and Deborah Young Sztejnberg of Austin, Texas\.
