The Life and Death of Vincent Chin

Vincent Chin was adopted from China then lived in the Detroit area in his adult life and was a recent graduate of Control Data Institute, a computer trade school. He worked as a draftsman and waiter to support his parents, C. W. and Lily Chin. C. W. immigrated to the United States in 1922 during the peak of Chinese immigration to Detroit. The first Chinese immigrants came to Detroit in 1872 and mainly worked in laundries, which is what C. W. Chin did until his death in 1981, a year before Vincent was killed at the age of 27. During the early 1900s, the young auto industry of Detroit was booming. The Great Migration from the South brought African Americans and whites to work in the factories. These are the people the Chinese immigrant laundry workers mainly served. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and other anti-Asian laws in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries began to loosen during World War II. These laws were designed to prevent Chinese men from becoming naturalized citizens because they were considered “unassimilable” and a threat to American society. Women from China were barred from immigrating in the Page Act of 1875 because they were seen as immoral and suspected of prostitution. During World War II, China’s first lady, Mayling Soong, went on a goodwill tour to the U.S. and met with President Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor. The strengthening of U.S.-China relations led Roosevelt to sign the Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act in 1943. As a result, Chinese were allowed to immigrate to the United States at a quota of 105 and C. W. and other immigrants became eligible for citizenship. He was drafted to serve in the U.S. Army, and when the war ended, the U.S. government instituted the War Brides Act of 1945 and 1947, allowing him to find and marry a wife from China. He arranged for Lily to come to the United States in 1948. The Chins adopted Vincent in 1961 from the Guangdong Province in China, the same province where they both grew up. In his youth, Vincent ran on the high school track team and wrote poetry.

The 1982 murder of Vincent Chin and the legal cases that unfolded in its aftermath led to many significant developments in history. The Vincent Chin case marked the first time an Asian American was protected under hate crime laws in a civil rights case and marked a critical turning point that expanded communities who were protected under national hate crime policies. As a result, this case is referenced in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice website. Also, according to Helen Zia, one of the leaders in the Justice for Vincent Chin campaign, the activism that erupted was the “first explicitly Asian American grass-roots community advocacy effort with a national scope.” Finally, a series of legal reforms in Michigan were enacted, such as the Crime Victims Rights Act of 1985. Prosecutors also must be present at sentencing hearings and there are now mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines.

Racial Scapegoating and Discrimination

The killing of Chin is situated in the context of severe economic decline and struggles faced by working class people during the 1980s. This was connected to the international oil crisis of the 1970s and caused extreme inflation, a higher cost of living, and unemployment. The auto industry, centered in Detroit, was especially affected. Since oil prices were so high, many Americans preferred newer fuel-efficient, Japanese-made, cars from companies like Honda and Toyota, over American cars from companies like Chevrolet, Chrysler, and Ford.

Those Americans seeking a racialized scapegoat blamed Japan for American economic and social problems. Some believed that due to a strained trading relationship with Japan, the Japanese engaged in unfair trading practices, leading to Americans buying more products from Japan than the United States, especially automobiles. As a result, racist discourse and ideology centered against Japan and Japanese people, became widespread throughout the United States. Disparaging comments came from political leaders such as the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Tip O’Neill, U.S. Senator Carl Levin, and U.S. Representative John Dingell of Michigan. These racist sentiments were infused into popular culture as they appeared on bumper stickers meant to remind the public of what Japan had done to the U.S. during World War II with messages like “Honda, Toyota - Pearl Harbor.” Public figures like Chrysler Corporation chairman Lee Iacocca, made similar references to this line of thinking by harshly joking about dropping nuclear bombs on Japan. Along with leadership of automotive companies, workers also displayed such attitudes. For example, a sign outside of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union stated, “300,000 Laid-Off Autoworkers Say Park Your Import in Tokyo.” Culturally-fueled anti-Asian sentiments became part of union member activities as they held “sledgehammer events” to vent their anger by destroying Japanese cars. As this anti-Japanese sentiment grew, it fueled racist perceptions of all Americans of Asian descent.

This is the backdrop against which Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, two white autoworkers, targeted and killed Vincent Chin. They harbored anti-Asian feelings, wanted to inflict violence on Vincent and his Chinese American friend, and stalked them by paying a local neighborhood man 20 dollars to “get the Chinese.” Ebens also equated Vincent with the Japanese they believed were causing their problems within the auto industry and they scapegoated him by saying, “It’s because of you [profanity] that we are out of work!”

Systems of Legal and Criminal Injustice

During the trial, Ebens and Nitz pled guilty to beating Chin to death with a baseball bat and on March 18, 1983, Judge Kaufman sentenced them each to three years probation and a 3,000-dollar fine. His reasoning was that the circumstances were nothing more than a simple barroom fight. Kaufman was quoted saying,“These aren’t the kind of men you send to jail… You fit the punishment to the criminal, not the crime.” The sentence stunned Detroit residents, and resonated with the majority African American population, who often received more severe sentences for less serious crimes. Public outcry followed this lenient sentence, which resulted in neither Ebens nor Nitz spending a day in jail. Detroit Free Press columnist Nikki McWhirter wrote, “You have raised the ugly ghost of racism, suggesting in your explanation that the lives of the killers are of great and continuing value to society, implying they are of greater value than the life of the slain victim… How gross and ostentatious of you; how callous and yes, unjust.”

Lily Chin and the Asian American community were utterly outraged by the fact that the killers would not be punished for the brutal murder of Vincent. Lily wrote a letter to the Detroit Chinese Welfare Council, an organization that advocated for the wellbeing of Chinese Americans, expressing her anguish. In her letter she wrote:

This is injustice to the grossest extreme. I grieve in my heart and shed tears in blood. My son cannot be brought back to life, but he was a member of your council. Therefore, I plead to you. Please let the Chinese American community know, so they can help me hire legal counsel to appeal, so my son can rest his soul.

Immediately after the sentencing, a small group of Asian Americans met to discuss what could be done to get justice for Vincent Chin. Local community leader and restaurateur Henry Yee, Chinese Welfare Council president Kin Yee, attorney Liza Chan, and journalist Helen Zia met. After their meeting, they gathered a larger meeting on March 20 of around thirty Asian Americans, including lawyers from across Michigan. Led by Lily Chin, the group decided that it was imperative for the public to know about this injustice. Lily said, “We must speak up. These men killed my son like an animal. But they go free. This is wrong. We must tell the people, this is wrong.”

With that directive, Liza Chan began her own investigation into what exactly happened on the night of the murder so they could decide on legal options for Vincent Chin’s case. It was during her pro-bono work that many details of the injustices involved in the Vincent Chin case were uncovered. First, Liza discovered that the arresting officer mishandled evidence from the crime scene. When she visited him for questioning, she noticed that the baseball bat used to kill Vincent was behind his desk rather than in the police department's evidence storage area. Second, police on the case did not interview everyone who witnessed the crime and what led to it, namely the dancers at the bar and the local neighborhood man the killers paid outside of the bar to "get the Chinese.” Also, Judge Kaufman spent 15 minutes listening to the case before he gave his sentencing of Ebens and Nitz. It was only presented from the defense’s position and prosecutors were not at the sentencing to make a punishment recommendation to the judge. Further, Kaufman neglected to read reports that would have given a more accurate picture of the killing. One was a psychiatric report “warning that Ebens was ‘an extremely hostile and explosive individual… with a potential for uncontrollable hostility and explosive acting out.’” Another was a recommendation by the probation officers to incarcerate Ebens and Nitz. Thus, Kaufman was only able to hear Ebens and Nitz’s attorney argue that Vincent Chin provoked the argument that led to his death. The way in which the sentencing took place clearly shows a one-sided approach in favor of the white defendants. As a result of the protests against how the Vincent Chin case was handled, laws to standardize protocol were implemented in Michigan; for example, minimal sentencing guidelines and the Crime Victims Rights Act of 1985.

These beginning meetings and investigations, with Lily Chin as the inspirational force, led to the formation of American Citizens for Justice, the organization that drove a national civil rights movement. Led by Asian Americans and in coalition with organizations and individuals of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, the Justice for Vincent Chin campaign amassed strong national and international support.

Asian American Activism and Cross-Racial Solidarity

The birth of a national civil rights movement for Asian Americans emerged from the hard work of the local Asian American community, who sought to gain justice for Vincent Chin. Through publicity campaigns and protests, this grass-roots effort spread across the United States within communities of all backgrounds. It began with people in Detroit and the surrounding area forming a new pan-Asian organization, American Citizens for Justice (ACJ). This happened on March 31, 1983, when over 100 Asian Americans gathered in a meeting after Helen Zia issued a press release. Before this, there was no pan-Asian American advocacy organization that represented Asian Americans in the Midwest; those types of organizations only existed in San Francisco and New York at the time. The immediate goal of ACJ was to strategize effective legal actions, promote awareness about Asian Americans and Vincent Chin to the media and public, raise money, and mobilize supporters. A number of members from the Organization of Chinese Americans, the Japanese American Citizens League, the Korean Society of Greater Detroit, and the Filipino American Community Council joined ACJ. On April 15, they conducted their first news conference at the Detroit Press Club, attracting media from across the Detroit area. It was a significant moment for the local area to witness Asian Americans coming together to fight for civil rights, something rare in Detroit.

ACJ also worked together with the local African American community. Helen Zia and Liza Chan appeared on a well-known African American radio talk show and spoke to local residents to promote awareness. Organizations such as the Detroit Area Black Organizations (DABO), the NAACP Detroit Branch, and prominent African American churches pledged their support. Horace Sheffield, founder and president of DABO and a prominent union leader, was a reliable supporter at ACJ events.

Other non-Asian organizations and individuals, such as the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, the Detroit Roundtable of Christians and Jews, Latino/as, Arab Americans, and Italian Americans, also helped ACJ. Endorsements came from the Detroit Women’s Forum, Black Women for a Better Society, Detroit City Council members, and U.S. Representative John Conyers.

Activists decided to pursue a federal civil rights case once crucial evidence was discovered of racial slurs and comments made by Ronald Ebens toward Vincent Chin. They collected thousands of signatures in a petition to support this. ACJ organized a large-scale demonstration in downtown Detroit’s Kennedy Square, where many historic protests had been held. Hundreds of people from all walks of life and backgrounds marched and read support statements. This was the first protest organized by Asian Americans in Detroit. As a multiracial coalition, citizens of Detroit banded together and marched to the federal courthouse to deliver the petition to U.S. Attorney Leonard Gilman. With mounting pressure from national and international press coverage along with pan-Asian demonstrations across the U.S., the federal government agreed to try the case. A federal jury would decide if the killers violated Chin’s civil right to enjoy public accommodations.

In June 1984, a federal civil rights trial was held in Detroit and found Ebens guilty of violating Vincent Chin’s civil rights. This was the first time an Asian American was protected under hate crimes laws. Unfortunately, the case was appealed by Ebens’ lawyers over evidentiary errors. The 1987 retrial was held in Cincinnati, and the selected jurors were screened for their contact with people of Asian descent. Ultimately this led to a largely white, male, blue collar jury, who overturned the 1984 civil rights case. Ebens was ultimately found innocent of civil rights violations and Nitz was acquitted in both trials. Neither ever served a day in jail for Chin’s murder.

At the center of all this activism was Lily Chin, the heart of the movement. She was often referred to as the "Rosa Parks of Asian Americans" because of her tireless commitment to fight against the injustice of her son’s case. Although she was emotionally destroyed by the final outcome of Vincent’s case, the legacy of the civil rights movement she inspired lives on. Generations of Asian American groups continue to organize and stand up against anti-Asian hate crimes and incidents in their own communities.