[3] Ruthanne Lum McCunn was born as Roxey Drysdale on February 21, 1946, in Chinatown, San Francisco and raised in Hong Kong.
Interracial marriage was illegal in California at the time so they drove to Washington, where a minister, who was a friend of her father's family, married them.
In 1947, her mother returned to Hong Kong with Ruthanne and her sister, where they lived in Sai Ying Pun.
For two years, she attended Diablo Valley Junior College, and worked odd jobs from janitor to short-order cook.
She was co-editor with Judy Yung and Russell C. Leong on the Chinese American historian Him Mark Lai's autobiography.