The 1982 murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit inspired decades of Asian American activism across the country

Two white auto workers bludgeoned Vincent Chin, a 27-year-old Chinese-American, to death with a baseball bat at his bachelor party in Detroit in 1982, but his relatives’ cries for justice fell on deaf ears.

Twelve days passed before the media reported Chin’s murder, committed by men who blamed Asian automakers for the city’s demise of the auto industry. None of them acknowledged at the time that his killing was racially motivated. The defendants pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and were sentenced to three years’ probation. Judge Charles Kaufman said, “These are not the kind of men you send to prison.”

The injustice has prompted Asian Americans to unite across ethnic and cultural lines. Hundreds of people protested the trial’s outcome in downtown Detroit. Chin’s mother traveled across the country to tell her story and lobby for federal civil rights charges.

More than four decades later, activists continue to fight to ensure Chin is not forgotten, saying her story has inspired advocacy efforts across the country. Law students are reenacting her trial, Hollywood has adapted her story into a film, and Asian Americans are remembering the impact her murder had on their fight for racial justice and equality.

“For a whole generation of Asian American activists, the Vincent Chin case was the catalyst for their engagement,” says writer and filmmaker Curtis Chin. “It’s what got them speaking out.”

After the judge spared Vincent Chin’s killers, 14-year-old Curtis Chin grabbed his parents’ typewriter and wrote angry letters to newspaper editors. He had found his calling.

Instead of taking over his family’s Chinese restaurant, Curtis Chin — who is no relation to the man killed on June 23, 1982 — spent the next 30 years raising the voices of Asian Americans and telling the story of Vincent Chin and the racism of 1980s Detroit.

For Helen Zia, an Asian American activist who moved to Detroit in the 1970s, Chin’s case highlighted the gross injustices her community faced.

In the absence of local organizations advocating for Asian American civil rights, Zia co-founded American Citizens for Justice, which helped secure federal trials for Chin’s killers. One was acquitted of civil rights violations, and the other was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. His conviction was overturned on appeal.

On June 20, the FBI released a 602-page file on Chin’s death, revealing never-before-seen witness interviews with descriptions of his final moments and the anti-Asian slurs used by his attackers, among other details.

Last year, Zia launched the Vincent Chin Institute, an Asian American advocacy organization.

Chin’s case has had an impact beyond advocacy. Harvard Law School students reenacted the trials of his attackers to highlight the flaws in the justice system. His murder inspired documentaries, a podcast and a film, “Who Killed Vincent Chin?”

Vincent Chin was the victim of brutal racial violence, but out of that tragedy emerged “a chorus of Asian American voices,” says Curtis Chin.

The auto workers who attacked Chin blamed foreign automakers for the U.S. auto industry’s woes.

This fear of a foreign economic threat echoes modern “anti-China hysteria and scapegoating,” says Cynthia Choi, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, pointing to attacks on Asians by people blaming them for the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What’s different for our community today is that we’re speaking out. We’re speaking out,” Choi says.

Founded in 2020, Stop AAPI Hate advocates for policy change and collects comprehensive data on hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The group has documented thousands of cases across the country, including verbal and physical violence, as well as discrimination in businesses and education.

“Nearly 50% of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders reported experiencing some form of racial hatred in the past year,” Choi said.

Advocates say there is still much to be done.

“We don’t even exist to most Americans,” Zia says, citing lack of visibility as a major factor in perpetuating stereotypes of Asian Americans.

John Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC, highlights the harmful effects of stereotypes.

“In terms of job opportunities, we’re pigeonholed as permanent foreigners,” Yang says. “Asian Americans aren’t promoted at the same rate. We don’t hold leadership positions or board positions the same way other Americans do.”

Discrimination extends to housing, too. The Urban Institute, a think tank that conducts economic and policy research, reports that Asian American buyers are offered 18.8 percent fewer homes than white buyers. Yet the stereotype of Asian Americans as the model minority leads some fair housing advocates to exclude Asian Americans from their efforts.

“Everyone questions whether an Asian American is really American, and that’s why they’re not offered the same housing,” Yang said. “They’re not given the same opportunities.”

On Sunday, dozens of Bostonians gathered outside the Chinatown gate to pay tribute to Chin. They wore T-shirts that read “STOP ASIAN HATE,” arranged heart-shaped candles and displayed a portrait of Chin with his name written in Chinese and “May 18, 1955 – June 23, 1982.”

Wilson Lee, co-founder of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Boston Lodge and the Chinese American Heritage Foundation, said he and his wife have held a vigil in Chin’s memory every June 23 for the past six years. Even as the media attention has faded, their dedication to Chin’s memory has not wavered.

“We’re in this for the long haul,” Lee says. “Because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s a popular thing to do.”

A group of local dignitaries joined the commemoration, as did 16 elementary and middle school students of Asian descent whom Lee described as “stakeholders.” They held orange lilies and yellow flowers pressed to their chests.

“We need to make sure that future generations, especially our young people, know the experience that he had,” Lee said. “They stand on the shoulders of giants, and Vincent Chin was a giant.”