To remember Vincent Chin and his legacy, the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Boston Lodge and the Chinese American Heritage Foundation organized a vigil on June 23, 2021. Helen Yang from the AAER was invited to speak at the event.
Below is the press release from the organizers.
The Chinese American Heritage Foundation (CAHF) and the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Boston Lodge (CACA Boston) will hold a memorial vigil to honor the memory of Vincent Chin; marking the 39th anniversary of Vincent Chin’s brutal murder. Asian Americans and allies will honor his memory and maintain the legacy that his life inspired. The Boston vigil will take place in front of the Chinatown Lion Gateway on Wednesday, June 23, 2021 at 6:00 pm EDT.
Vincent Chin was a Chinese American draftsman who was mercilessly beaten to death with a baseball bat in a racially motivated attack by two white men, Chrysler plant supervisor Ronald Ebens and his stepson, laid-off autoworker Michael Nitz in Detroit on June 19, 1982. They apparently assumed Chin was of Japanese descent and are alleged to have used racial slurs as they attacked him. Ebens and Nitz blamed him for the success of Japan’s auto industry, despite the fact that Chin was of Chinese descent. At the time, Metro Detroit was a powder keg of racial animosity toward Asian Americans, specifically as the penetration of Japanese automotive imports in the U.S. domestic market hastened the decline of Detroit’s Big Three. Resentful workers laid the blame for recent layoffs on Japanese competition. Chin was taken to Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, where a nurse told his childhood friend that “he has no chance” and that “his brain was dead.” He died of his injuries four days later.
Ebens and Nitz were charged with second-degree murder but bargained the charges down to manslaughter and pleaded guilty in 1983. They were ordered to pay $3,000 and serve three years’ probation, with no jail time. While Ebens and Nitz never denied the brawl, they claimed the fight was not racially motivated and said they did not use racial epithets.
The lenient sentence led to a vocal outcry from Asian Americans. The president of the Detroit Chinese Welfare Council said it amounted to a “$3,000 license to kill” Chinese Americans. As a result, the case has been viewed as a critical turning point for Asian American civil rights engagement and a rallying cry for stronger federal hate crime legislation. As the community rallied for justice, a new generation of Asian American activists was raised. They were aided by Rev. Jesse Jackson, who took time off from his presidential campaign, traveled to Detroit to comfort the Chin family and spotlight the injustice faced by the Chinese American community.
The Vincent Chin Memorial Vigil will also give all Americans an opportunity to stand together in solidarity against discrimination, hate, racism and violence. “We must work together to end systemic racism, for injustice against one is injustice against all. Let us live up to our nation’s motto E pluribus unum, Out of many, one. We stand ready and committed to be a part of the solution to work constructively with all like-minded people and bring equality and justice for all. As we reflect on all the tragedies around us, let us pray to God for his mercy and guidance as we began the process to heal our nation. We cannot be silent; we must speak up against the racial divide in America” said Esther Lee, Founder of CAHF and CACA Boston.
For information about CAHF or CACA Boston, visit: www.cahf.us or www.cacaboston.org
Speech from the AAER
Speech for Vincent Chin Vigil, 06/23/2021, Chinatown Lions Gate, Boston
Hello everyone. My name is Helen Yang; I am the Vice President of the Asian Americans for Equal Rights and CALex (Chinese Americans of Lexington).
We are gathering this evening to remember Vincent Chin. In the movie Nomadland, Fern said, “what is remembered lives.” Thank you Esther and Wilson for organizing this vigil to keep the memory alive. I am so honored to be here.
Vincent Chin was getting married when he encountered Ronald Ebens who killed him. Had it not been for the tragic night, Vincent would have been happily married for 39 years and he probably would have had children and grandchildren.
Ronald Ebens was upset that the Japanese auto industry was threatening his job, and he thought Vincent was Japanese. How to deal with foreign threats is another topic for another day, but the bottom line is, when the US gets into a situation with an Asian country, Asian Americans should NOT be blamed because we are first and foremost Americans.
The real mistake that Ronald Ebens made was not about Japanese versus Chinese. It was about whether Vincent Chin was a foreigner or an American. It never occurred to Ronald Ebens that Vincent could be a fellow American, working in the same industry and sharing the same concern.
This perpetual foreigner bias has played out again and again, from the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, to the Internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, to the recent hate crimes against Asian Americans. This has to stop.
Why are Asian Americans perceived as foreigners in our own land? One major reason is that Asian American stories are missing in our classrooms and in the media. Our contributions have been erased, and our sufferings have been conveniently ignored. Not surprisingly, Asian Americans are de-Americanized, and then de-humanized.
It is time to teach Asian American history and stories in our schools, so all children, not just Asian American children, but all children, can build the right mindset that Asian Americans are an intrinsic part of the American fabric. It is time to have fair coverage of Asian Americans in the media so we are no longer invisible. The time is now, because we do exist, and we do matter.
Let’s pray that tragedies like Vincent Chin will never happen again. Thank you.
Community Leaders Joined Vigil
Other community leaders from Boston metro area joined the Vigil, including Swan Lee, a renowned civil rights leader in Boston, and Mabel Amar, an active citizen from Lexington. Swan Lee gave an inspirational speech at the vigil, cautioning people of the harm of the Critical Race Theory.
