The Vincent Chin 40th Remembrance and Rededication

 

June 19, 2022 marks the 40^th anniversary of the murder of Vincent Chin, an Asian American man beaten to death by two men in Highland Park, Michigan. Chin’s death, and the subsequent trial and lenient sentencing of his murderers, galvanized the Asian American community to form a civil rights movement joining various ethnic groups together—Chinese American, Japanese America, Korean American, and more—under a common cause.

 

In the first trial, defendants Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, were given three years' probation and fined $3,000 and court costs and released. The judge said they "weren't the kind of men you send to jail," and that putting them in prison wouldn’t do any good for them or for society. "You don't make the punishment fit the crime; you make the punishment fit the criminal."

 

Before the murder, most Asian communities identified as their specific ethnic group. However, Chin’s murder drove the communities to unite, finding strength in numbers, and resulting in the term “Asian American” becoming mainstream. Chin’s murder gave birth to the Asian American civil rights movement and brought other minority groups out in support of Asian Americans. This allyship—among Asian Americans, African Americans, and the Latinx communities—inspired change, triggering the federal government to apply hate crimes laws to include all races, ethnicities, religions, and genders.

 

The case is credited in part for the mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines set forth by the State of Michigan Supreme Court and state legislature, and ensuring that families in future cases would be given the opportunity to submit victims' impact statements.

 

Although the public outrage over Chin’s murder changed the law and forever changed the Asian American identity, neither Ebens nor Nitz were found guilty nor did they spend a day in jail.

 

On this 40^th anniversary, Roeper Asian Families (RAF) remembers and honors the Asian American civil rights legacy that began with Vincent Chin, and encourages the empowerment of our RAF voices.

 

Another activity for families with older children, please consider watching the PBS Broadcast of “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” on Monday, June 20 at 10:00 pm.