Do you remember the details of the Vincent Chin case, the watershed Asian American civil rights case from 25 years ago? And what were the lessons learned from that important case? This article is to fill you in on the details and those lessons.
The Facts
On June 19, 1982, Vincent Chin, a 27 year old Chinese American was with three of his buddies for a bachelor party at the Fancy Pants Bar in Highland Park a few days before his upcoming wedding. By the end of the evening, Vincent Chin had been beaten by two white auto workers with a baseball bat and Chin was clinging to life, only to die four days later.
Vincent got into an altercation with Ronald Ebens and his stepson Michael Nitz. Vincent and his friends, and Ebens and Nitz were told to leave the bar. Ebens got a baseball bat from the trunk of his car, and Vincent and his friend Jimmy Choi ran away. Ebens and Nitz drove around for 30 minutes looking for Vincent. Ebens and Nitz caught up to Vincent Chin on Woodward Avenue outside a nearby McDonald’s. While Nitz held Vincent, Ebens beat him with several swings of the baseball bat. Vincent Chin died on June 23, 1982after he was taken off life support.
In a State criminal proceeding Ebens and Nitz were charged with second degree murder, but later plead guilty and no contest respectively to manslaughter in a plea bargain. Without any prosecuting attorney present at sentencing, Wayne County Circuit Judge Charles Kaufman heard only from defense attorneys and sentenced the men to only three years probation and a $3,000 fine.
The Chinese American community and soon the whole Asian American community were outraged at the lenient sentence. On Leong President and honorary mayor of Chinatown Kin Yee called then OCA-Detroit Chapter president Roland Hwang for a meeting to talk about the sentence. Combining the efforts of two groups would be a stronger force for the case. Hence, at that meeting at On Leong Hall, American Citizens for Justice, a newly formed Asian American civil rights group was born with a name to show broad support for justice for Vincent. Kin Yee, Marisa Chuang Ming, Helen Zia, and Roland Hwang were the first officers.
Attorney Liza Chan filed a motion to reopen the sentence, claiming misrepresentations were made during sentencing in front of Judge Kaufman. Appeals to reopen the sentencing in the State appellate courts were not successful. Later on, after investigation by American Citizens for Justice, and journalists, it was learned Racine Colwell one of the dancers in the bar overheard Ebens say “Nip”, “Chink”, and “because of you mother fuc---s, we’re out of work.”
Research revealed that the most viable option for justice for Vincent Chin was the pursuit of federal civil rights charges against Ebens and Nitz. Lily Chin, the mother of Vincent met with the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights William Bradford Reynolds, the FBI agreed to investigate the case, and a federal criminal trial proceeded. The federal trial before U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor resulted in a guilty verdict against Ronald Ebens and a 20-year sentence. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the verdict citing trial errors. Later, a change of venue motion was granted, and the case was moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. At a second trial in Cincinnati, Ohio, a jury found Ronald Ebens not guilty of a civil rights violation in the killing of Vincent Chin.
Lessons Learned
Those lessons are summarized below:
1. Identifying and interviewing all of the witnesses is crucial.
We cannot assume that law enforcement will always identify all of the facts and the motivations for an assault. Here, police investigation was lacking. The detective did not interview the dancers at the Fancy Pants where such interviews would have revealed the motivations of Ebens and Nitz, what was said, and what occurred about a half an hour before the beating.
2. Coalition building is important.
After the sentence of probation, American Citizens for Justice and the APA community could not get a meeting with the then-county prosecutor William Cahalan. It took the intervention of New Detroit, the urban coalition that arose from the 1967 Detroit Riot, and the Detroit Organization of Black Organizations, for a meeting to occur with the prosecutor.
The importance of coalitions cannot be overemphasized. Moving ahead twenty years after the beating death of Vincent Chin, representatives of New Detroit, the Detroit Branch of the NAACP, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Michigan branch, and the Anti-Defamation League, all participated in the 20th Year Remembrance in Detroit.
3. Pressure brings results.
Federal involvement is most often discretionary. Usually cases are left for local prosecution. The application of local hate crime tack on statutes (in Michigan, it is 2 years additional or $5,000 fine) is discretionary with the local prosecutor. Without community pressure, a local prosecutor may not apply the hate crime provision. Federal interest in a particular case or a set of facts likely will not arise without community pressure and media attention on a case, pointing out the egregiousness of the case facts, or the unfairness of the sentencing result without Federal involvement.
4. Sentencing is a crucial part of the case.
The county prosecutor’s office did not treat the sentencing hearing as a very important part of the justice process. The cases were treated as complete after the plea bargain. Assistant prosecutors at the time of the Vincent Chin case routinely did not appear at sentencing. Since the Chin case, the county assistant prosecutors have more often appeared at the sentencing phase.
5. The media has an important role.
ACJ was very fortunate to have journalist Helen Zia, then a writer for the Detroit Free Press and Metropolitan Detroit, and later managing editor of Ms. Magazine, as its first secretary and later president. It was Helen who was able to gain the attention of the news desks of the media in Detroit and later the attention of a writer for the New York Times.
Without the scrutiny of the media, it is quite possible the later investigations in the case, the involvement of the FBI, and the Department of Justice decision to proceed with a civil rights trial involving an Asian American victim, all might not have occurred.
6. The victim’s loss must be a matter of record.
At the time of the Vincent Chin case, the impact of the victim’s death was not a matter of record. The Chin case became a cornerstone for the state statute that gives representatives of the victim’s family an opportunity to make a statement about the impact of the loss on the victim’s family at sentencing.
7. Changing venue changes results.
We now know after the Rodney King case how a change of venue (in that case to suburban Simi Valley from Los Angeles) can vastly affect the results of a case after a jury trial. The same held true in the Vincent Chin case when the second federal trial of Ronald Ebens in Cincinnati, rather than in Detroit, resulted in a not guilty verdict, rather than guilty.
8. The activists can wear different hats.
Many of the activist volunteers in the Vincent Chin case went on to wear different hats so their advocacy could take place in different forums. The Asian American Bar Association of Michigan came into being during the Vincent Chin case. Many of the same volunteer attorneys were involved in ACJ and the founding of the Asian American Bar. Attorney Harold Leon, who appeared in the movie “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” went on to become the first president of the Asian American Bar Association of Michigan in 1985.
9. The case leaves a lasting legacy.
The legacy of the Vincent Chin case lives on today. What must we as leaders and activists remember?
Organize. To be ready to fight harassment and hate violence, the APA community wherever it may be must be organized. That is the matter of importance for OCA ¡V to have chapters in every state and every metropolitan area where sufficient numbers of Asian American reside.
Coalition build. Wherever there is an opportunity to identify and work on civil rights issues and to develop a common agenda, whether it is harassment, hate violence, or immigration reform, OCA and its chapters should explore working with other civil rights organizations, both locally and nationally.
Contact the Media. Never be afraid to contact the media with your story of harassment, discrimination or hate violence. If the case goes unreported, it will have an unsatisfactory result. Each chapter should identify its media point persons hopefully ahead of time, and identify media outlets that are willing to run those stories.
One hopes that the lessons of the Vincent Chin case will be remembered anytime an incident of intolerance, ethnic or racial discrimination, or hate violence occurs and comes to the attention of the OCA, or any OCA chapter.
Roland Hwang is a past president of the OCA-Detroit (1983). He most recently served as vice president of the chapter (2005-06). He served as the first Treasurer (1983), and later as President of American Citizens for Justice (1992-94). He serves as an attorney for the State of Michigan. He was appointed a hearing referee for the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, and was a past member and chair of the Michigan Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He can be reached at hwangr@aol.com
Disclaimer
The views expressed in the editorials are solely of the individual author and are not necessarily those of the Council of Asian Pacific Americans or its members.
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Thank you very much for this easy to follow guide, it was very usefull.
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