The director of the film, Renee Tajima-Peña, couldn’t travel to Boston due to the Coronavirus outbreak, but Skyped in during the discussion. (Yiming Zhao/Sampan)
“Justice for my son,” said Vincent Chin’s mother Lily Chin in tears after the jury acquitted Ronald Ebens of civil right charges in federal court in Cincinnati. Ebens, one of the men who beat Vincent Chin to death with a baseball bat on the night of June 19, 1982, in Detroit, will not serve a day in jail. Her pain and struggle were emotionally captured in the1987 documentary “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” which was shown at the Boston Asian American Film Festival held March 8 at Emerson College’s Paramount Theater.
The showing was followed by a sneak-peek of the upcoming PBS docuseries “Asian Americans.” Lily Chin’s lawyer and activist Helen Zia joined the audience for a discussion after the screening and was moderated by Boston University Asian-American Studies professor Dr. Takeo Rivera. The director of the film, Renee Tajima-Peña, couldn’t travel to Boston due to the Coronavirus outbreak, but Skyped in during the discussion.
Chinese American engineer Vincent Chin was beaten to death with a baseball bat on the night of his bachelor party by Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, two auto workers recently laid off from Chrysler. They assumed Chin was of Japanese descent and blamed him for the booming auto industry in Japan that caused their unemployment. Ebens allegedly said “It’s because of you little motherf—–s that we’re out of work!”
The brutal murder of Chin outraged the Asian-American community around the country when the two perpetrators were only ordered to pay $3,000 and serve three years’ probation with no jail time after pleading guilty to manslaughter. The judge failed to call any witnesses to testify on Chin’s side of the story, and there was no prosecutor present.
Many took to the street to protest the unfair sentence, and it sparked a Pan-Asian American civil rights movement. A group of Asian Americans in Detroit, including lawyer and activist Helen Zia, founded American Citizens for Justice. ACJ’s campaign and protest finally brought Chin’s case to trial. Even though Ebens was sentenced to 25 years in prison, the case was overturned due to a legal technicality. Ebens was acquitted in the retrial.
The Vincent Chin movement still made inroads in the judicial system, providing victims with a stronger voice, and requiring a prosecutor be present at all times during the court proceedings, Zia said. The Chin movement was also important in the development of current hate crime laws and ensuring that immigrants are now covered by federal civil rights.
Zia pointed out that the movie is very significant today because of the growing anti-Asian hysteria resulting from the coronavirus, which started in Wuhan, China.
“It’s real clear to me where we are today is part of a continuum that’s been going on for quite some time,” said Zia. “We have not only this white supremacy White House that has been trumpeting; they’ve created an Office of Denaturalization. What’s happening today really resonates for me having lived through that in Detroit. It’s like watching a bad rerun of a terrible nightmare.”
Tajima added that in the past 30 years the presence of Asian Americans has grown, and so too has the privilege for some Asian Americans. However, the disparity within the community is also significant, she said.
“You got some Asian Americans who enjoy privilege economically and socially. Other Asian Americans who are still really left behind. It’s a real question: how do we move forward?” said Tajima.
Zia agreed with Tajima and went on to explain that Asian Americans have never been in control of their own representation. She believes that Asian Americans get manipulated because they don’t control the media. They are labeled by others as the “model minority.”
“There’re plenty of Asian Americans who say ‘What’s wrong being considered a model?’ But if you’re saying we’re the good minority, who are the bad minorities?” asked Zia
She expressed the need for more filmmakers and creators like Tajima so the Asian-American community can control its own voice, media and identity.
To learn more about the contributions, and challenges of Asian Americans, tune in to the new PBS docuseries “Asian Americans” which premieres May 11.
