Remembering Vincent Chin...

On the night of June 19th, 1982, a Chinese American man named Vincent Chin was attacked by two Caucasian men, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, who had just lost their jobs at a Chrysler auto plant in Detroit, Michigan.

They thought that Mr. Chin was of Japanese descent and blamed him for "stealing" their jobs.

On the night of his bachelor party, Mr. Chin was beaten over the head with a baseball bat by those two men.

Four days later, he died from injuries he sustained during the beating and the 400 guests, who were invited to his wedding, instead attended his funeral.

The two men who killed Vincent Chin were eventually given three years probation and fined $3,780.

This case is considered the incident that galvanized the Asian American community to start the pan-ethnic Asian American movement.

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Two nights ago, I saw a premier performance by the Pan Asian Repertory theater of "Carry the Tiger to the Mountain" - a staged documentary of the Vincent Chin case.

While I was touched to learn more about the story (I had studied it in my Asian American History class-- back in my days at good ol' U of Pee), I was seriously disappointed that today, twenty-five years after Mr. Chin's attack and subsequent death, the Asian American community has again slipped into seeming apathy.

The 25th anniversary of the case that supposedly brought together Asian Americans around the United States is barely causing a ripple in our community.

Hate crimes are unfortunately not a thing of the past and Asian Americans still experience the same ignorance and bigotry today that they faced twenty-five years ago.

For these reasons, I strongly urge anyone, who is interested in Asian American issues or wants to learn more about this case, to see the performance. It runs until tomorrow night- 25 years to the date when Vincent Chin died.

http://www.panasianrep.org/productionevents.htm?link=production