Opinion | How the racist killing of Vincent Chin sparked the Asian-American movement
- Chin’s killing highlighted how Asians in America have faced racism, too, no matter how much they tried to be a ‘model minority’. His death inspired both a new degree of consciousness among Asian-Americans and a nationwide movement
In my hometown of Detroit, Chin was killed by attackers who blamed him in a case of mistaken identity. This was in 1982, at the height – or the depths – of a recession that was record-setting until recently.
Chin, a 27-year-old Chinese-American, was celebrating his bachelor’s party, a traditional ritual before a wedding. He was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat by two white autoworkers, father and stepson, who had used racial slurs. According to a witness, they shouted that it was because of “little motherf*****s” like him that they were out of work.
Teachers said that sticks and stones would break my bones, but words would never hurt me. Even as a child, however, I realised how words led to sticks and stones
Ironically, the engineers who designed the latest models included many Asian immigrants. That was why my family was there – my father worked for one of those brands that dominated industry as a global model.
Yet we had the face of the enemy. A local politician with national influence blamed “little yellow men” in speeches he gave to the same crowds that took part in raffles for an opportunity to destroy the hated imports by taking sledgehammers to them in television events.
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The perpetrators always admitted they killed Chin. They denied only the motive. According to their lawyers, they were the ones who were wronged by accusations of bigotry. It was merely a bar brawl, not a hate crime. They felt the roles could have been reversed.