Vincent Chin murder 35 years later: History repeating itself?

Niraj Warikoo | Detroit Free Press

Show Caption Hide Caption Vincent Chin's murder 35 years later: Is history repeating itself? Thirty-five years ago, Vincent Chin, of Asian descent, was murdered by white men in a hate crime in 1982 in Highland Park, MI. The case still resonates in Michigan, where there has been a spike in reported hate crimes.

Thirty-five years ago this week, Gary Koivu visited a Detroit hospital to see his friend Vincent Chin, his head swathed in bandages after being slugged in Highland Park by a man with a baseball bat.

"It was very upsetting," recalled Koivu, 61, of Harrison Township, who was 26 at the time of the incident. "I had been friends with him for 20 years. I asked the nurse, How is he doing? What are his chances? She said, he has no chance, she said his brain was dead."

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A couple of days later, Chin died, 35 years ago Thursday.

The tragic death — and subsequent lenient punishment (probation and a $3,000 fine) — outraged Asian Americans in Detroit. They organized, forming new coalitions and the civil rights group American Citizens for Justice, sparking an Asian-American civil rights movement that continues today. On Saturday, a forum will be held at a Chinese-American center in Madison Heights to remember Vincent Chin with a documentary screening, panel discussion with Koivu and the director of Michigan's Civil Rights Dept. and a visit to Chin's grave site in Detroit. Of Chinese descent, Chin was an adopted son of immigrants from China in metro Detroit.

The case of Vincent Chin reverberates today amid renewed concern about hate crimes and anti-immigrant sentiment, say Asian-American attorneys in metro Detroit. They point to the shooting death in Kansas in February of an Indian-American man, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, by a suspect who yelled, "Get out of my country" and asked if he was a legal immigrant before shooting him and another Indian American. Federal prosecutors have filed hate crime charges in the case.

In Michigan, there was an upswing in hate crimes against minorities after the November election, according to state officials. And Michigan had the highest number of hate crimes post-election in the Midwest, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

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"History seems to be repeating itself," said James Shimoura, a Sylvan Lake attorney of Japanese descent who was active in organizing after the Chin case in the 1980s. "Some always try to find scapegoats for social and economic ills. The target changes, but same issue."

The June 1982 incident started after an attacker yelled at Chin: "It's because of you little (expletives) that we're out of work!" and anti-Asian racial slurs denigrating Chinese and Japanese people. In 1982, metro Detroit was going through a recession with many autoworkers out of work as anti-Asian racism, in particular against Japan, began to rise. Auto executives, union leaders and politicians in Michigan made anti-Japanese remarks, creating a climate that made many Asian Americans uneasy.

"Anyone who looked Japanese in the early 1980s or any Asian American, we all felt like moving targets," said author Helen Zia, who was an unemployed autoworker of Chinese descent living in Detroit at the time of the Vincent Chin killing. "People who drove cars of Japanese models were shot at on the freeway. ... That's the climate I remember 35 years ago."

Shimoura said "it was a powder keg" of racial animosity that exploded at a bar Chin was at in Highland Park with friends to celebrate before his upcoming wedding. After a scuffle inside the bar, Ronald Ebens, who worked in the auto industry, and his stepson, Michael Nitz, later chased down Chin, smashing his head with a bat.

Zia helped mobilize the Asian-American community in metro Detroit after Chin's death, working with others to try to convince prosecutors to take the case seriously. The case united the region's small, diverse Asian-American communities: Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Indian and others. They held protests in Detroit and advocated for authorities to take Chin's death seriously.

Zia and other Asian-American activists said it was frustrating at first, with Wayne County prosecutors, federal prosecutors, the ACLU, and National Lawyers Guild in the early 1980s all reluctant to deal with the case. Even progressives at the time didn't feel that Asian-American issues were important causes, Zia said.

"What makes us feel that Vincent has not died in vain is that there has been a lot of policy changes" over the past 35 years, Zia said. "One of the questions before the federal civil rights trial was: Are Asian Americans protected by civil rights law?"

Some at the time said they weren't, but Zia and others pushed to get civil rights charges filed in the case. They were concerned about Wayne County Circuit Judge Charles Kaufman's remarks during the case, when he said of the two men charged: “These weren't the kind of men you send to jail."

Asian-American activists said it showed a bias in favor of white defendants.

After receiving no jail time, the two men faced civil rights charges that came about after intense efforts by Asian-American activists, but they were later cleared of them after a retrial. A civil case resulted in financial judgments that Ebens still owes, Shimoura said.

Saturday's event is a way to tie Chin's case to current issues facing Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans, Latinos, African-Americans, and others, said Roland Hwang, an immigration attorney with the International Institute of Chinese descent, who was active in organizing in the 1980s after Chin's death.

"There are many things happening to people of color," Hwang said. "We're trying to connect the dots and talk about the strategies that different organizations are adopting."

It's been 35 years since his friend died, but Koivu still remembers Chin.

"He was very friendly, outgoing, liked to be around other people," Koivu said.

He remembers Chin getting attacked in the bar and a chair thrown at him before the incident spilled outside. Later, the two men drove around to track down Chin and bash his head. Koivu did not witness the murder, but remembers Ebens earlier at one point that night "pounding the baseball bat in his palm" and one man saying, "We're going to get your friend."

Koivu said, "I was very disturbed with the sentence of a fine and probation for both defendants. I couldn't believe it."

But, Koivu added, one positive that emerged out of it is that there is more awareness of injustices to Asian Americans and others.

"There was something good that came out of it, of something so tragic," he said. "I think people are more aware of injustices and protesting when they see it."

Contact Niraj Warikoo: nwarikoo@freepress.com or 313-223-4792. Follow him on Twitter @nwarikoo.

'Vincent Chin Remembrance Day' is on June 24, Saturday, from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Association of Chinese Americans, 32585 Concord Dr., Madison Heights.

It will include a screening of a documentary on Vincent Chin, followed by a Q&A with the movie's director Curtis Chin. There will be a panel discussion at 10 a.m. with civil rights advocates and Agustin Arbulu, Director of the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, followed by a 1 p.m. visit to the grave site of Vincent Chin in Detroit.