[2] He returned to China in the 1980s but died in New York in 1990 and was buried with his wife Alice in Silang, Cavite, Philippines at the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction.

Working with them to read and write letters, Yen recalled, he found "for the first time in my ignorant intellectual life" the value of the common people of his own country.

In 1923, Yen and leading intellectuals such as Liang Qichao, Hu Shih, and Tao Xingzhi formed the National Association of Mass Education Movements (MEM).

The MEM organized campaigns across the country which coordinated volunteer teachers, local leaders, and any available location in order to attract students who could not pay high tuitions.

He criticized most missionaries for not being in touch with the realities of China but enthusiastically welcomed the support of those Chinese and foreign Christian organizations which addressed the problems of the village.

[12] In 1985 the Chinese government finally welcomed Yen back to China and acknowledged his immense contribution to Mass Education and Rural Reconstruction.

[13][1] In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the New Rural Reconstruction Movement took up Yen's name and legacy to address the problems of the countryside created by the success of the globalized economy.

In July 2003, grassroots activists founded the James Yen Institute for Rural Reconstruction in Dingzhou, the site of the MEM's activities before the war.