The Jacqueline Eurn Hai Young papers consist of materials relating to Young’s career as a Representative in the State Legislature, educator, advocate for diversity and women’s rights, and as Campaign Director for Protect Our Constitution, an organization devoted to defeating the 1998 state ballot initiative that took the question of legalizing gay marriage out of the hands of Hawai‘i’s courts and placed it under the jurisdiction of the State Legislature.

Young’s papers are divided into two sub-fonds based on their accession dates: Accession 2024:046 and the 2018 accessions. The latter of these two--the sub-fonds that includes the 2018 accessions--documents Young’s work with Protect Our Constitution. In contrast, Accession 2024:046 covers a broader swath of Young’s career, from her initial involvement with politics via the Hawai‘i Women’s Political Action League in the early 1980s through her advocacy for cancer survivors in the 2000s and 2010s. As such, Accession 2024:046 is further divided into three series: Campaigns and career in office, Bills and speeches, and Other accomplishments.

The “Campaigns and Career in Office” series documents several of Jacqueline Young’s campaigns for elected office in Hawai‘i in the 1990s, as well as her work in the Hawai‘i State Legislature as the Representative for Waimanalo, Keolu, and Lanikai on the Windward side of O‘ahu.

The ‘Bills and Speeches’ series includes bills and resolutions that Representative Young introduced or sponsored during her time in the Legislature, speeches that she gave over the years, and planning correspondence and other documentation surrounding those events.

The Other Accomplishments series documents Young’s career before, after, and alongside her time in the State Legislature. Materials feature her involvement with various political advocacy organizations, her tenure as the Director of the State’s Office of Affirmative Action, and her advocacy efforts with the Hawai‘i affiliates of the American Cancer Society and Komen Race for the Cure.

Finally, the accessions donated by Ms. Young in 2018 pertain primarily to her involvement in Hawai‘i’s marriage equality movement, and in particular her work leading the advocacy organization Protect Our Constitution in 1997-1998. As such, the materials cover gay rights in general, and same sex marriage (also called same gender marriage) in particular.

Certain themes and topics appear throughout Young’s career, and thus throughout the collection. Young’s long-standing passion for topics such as civil rights, equity and anti-discrimination, and Hawai‘i’s local political scene is well-documented, as are her interests in education and educational policy, the protection of the natural environment, and her heritage as a third-generation Korean American.