Remembering Vincent Chin, decades after racist killing that was a flash point for Asian-Americans
- Chinese-American Vincent Chin was beaten to death in 1982 after celebrating his stag night with friends in Detroit
- Decades later, hate crimes against people of Asian and Pacific Islander descent have increased in the United States
Decades before Chinese immigrant Yao Pan Ma was attacked while collecting cans in New York and Thai-American Vicha Ratanapakdee was fatally assaulted in San Francisco, Vincent Chin was beaten to death with a baseball bat in Detroit by two white men who never served jail time.
Forty years later – and amid a rise in hate crimes against Asian-Americans – Detroit has partnered with The Vincent Chin 40th Remembrance & Rededication Coalition on a four-day commemoration to honour civil rights efforts that began with Chin’s death and declare the city’s commitment against such violence.
“Although hate crimes existed, Vincent Chin did bring out a flash point for Asian-Americans,” Stanley Mark, senior staff lawyer at the New York-based Asian-American Legal Defence and Education Fund, said, calling Chin’s death “a seminal moment among Asian-Americans”.
Chin, a 27-year-old Chinese immigrant, was at the Fancy Pants Tavern strip club in the Detroit enclave of Highland Park for his stag night on June 19, 1982, when a fight erupted.
Federal authorities said two autoworkers blamed Chin for lay-offs at car factories due to Japanese imports. After Chin left the club, the two men tracked him down at a fast food eatery and attacked him, authorities said. Chin later died at a hospital.
The Vincent Chin 40th Remembrance & Rededication commemoration started on Thursday.