Vincent Chin

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Vincent Chin •

Background

June 19, 1982 - Detroit, Michigan. 

Vincent Chin, a 27-year-old Chinese American man, was celebrating his bachelor party at the Fancy Pants strip club until a white man began to yell, “It’s because of you little mother f**kers, that we’re out of work.” Provoked, Chin and the white man, later identified as Ronald Ebens, engaged in a barroom brawl until they were subsequently removed from the facility. Afterward, Ebens and his stepson, Michael Nitz, followed Chin to the outside of a nearby McDonald’s where Ebens beat Chin over the head with a baseball bat repeatedly. Consequently, Chin was admitted into a hospital, soon declared brain-dead, and passed away four days later. 


Ebens and Nitz were initially charged with second degree murder. However, their final verdict resulted in three years’ probation and a $3000 court fine.

Context

  • Industrial Manufacturing

    Since the beginning of the 20th century, industrial manufacturing has characterized the city of Detroit as it became the dominant contributor to Detroit’s economy and entrenched itself within the livelihoods of Detroit’s inhabitants.

  • Economic Growth

    The 1950s introduction and expansion of the automobile industry incited the city’s economic growth, attracting millions of Americans seeking employment and opportunity at prominent American automobile companies– Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler.

  • Recession

    Yet, following its era of prosperity ensued an era of economic decline: Detroit’s economy singly revolved around its auto industry, which proved detrimental, exemplified by the city’s subsequent downturn as the auto industry was decentralized. The recession of this single-industry metropolis continued into the 1980s. The emergence and success of Japanese automotive companies further exacerbated Detroit’s decline as American automakers were compelled to lay off thousands of employees to stay afloat.

  • Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz

    Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz were two of the many individuals left unemployed and eager for someone to blame– the Japanese.

  • Anti-Japanese sentiments

    Anti-Japanese sentiment ran rampant as negatively affected Americans sought a scapegoat to loose their frustrations onto. The American, yet specifically the Detroit environment became permeated by frustration and racial tension in relation to economic instability, and Japanese Americans, or those perceived as resembling them, were on the receiving end. As Michigan was home to the Big Three– Ford, GM, and Chrysler– anti-Japanese prejudice was especially severe, many Michigan residents assuming a vendetta against the Japanese, manifesting in the destruction and vandalization of Japaenese cars and harassment of people.

“It’s because of you little mother f**kers, that we’re out of work.”

—–Ronald Ebens addressing Vincent Chin

First Trial

March 16, 1983, Ronald Ebens and Nitz stood trial on accounts of the second-degree murder of Vincent Chin. Those present within the courtroom were Ebens, Nitz, their defense attorneys, the judge, and the courtroom– those whom witnessed Chin’s assault, Chin’s friends and other witnesses, were barred from appearing. Within the courthouse, Ebens’ and Nitz’s lawyers declared to the judge that Chin had provoked the fight and that both Ebens and Nitz merely reacted according to the intensity of the moment. It was implied that the onslaught of Chin was not racially motivated. Ebens and Nitz emerged from the trial with probation and fines. The judge assessing the crime, Judge Kaufman, was reputedly lenient toward first offenders and was quoted as saying, “[they] weren’t the kind of men you send to jail” and that “...you don’t make the punishment fit the crime; you make the punishment fit the criminal.”     

The Asian American community was outraged by the results– justice had not been served but, rather, failed as neither men were jailed, Chin remained a product of racially motivated brutality, and Chin’s family and the Asian American community grieved his death with a lack of closure.

Activism

Thus, in the aftermath, a movement was initiated and enacted by a coalescence of Asian Americans demanding justice for Vincent Chin. 

Activist Helen Zia was particularly active in rallying Asian American lawyers, community leaders, etc. to establish the American Citizens for Justice, an organization that collaborated with various other diverse groups– Black activists, churches, synagogues, etc.– to protest the trial’s sentencing or lack thereof. These protests established alliances between multicultural and multiethnic groups beneath the mutual purpose of advocating for civil rights and change.  

These protests culminated in the first federal civil rights trial involving an Asian American. The question reinvestigated was whether being Asian American had factored into Chin’s death.

Second Trial

Upon the second trial in June 1984, Nitz was acquitted of all charges whilst Ebens was found guilty of transgressing Chin’s civil rights and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Yet, Ebens’ conviction was short-lived as his lawyers appealed his conviction, citing legal mistakes made during Ebens’ first trial. Thereafter, Ebens was tried once more in Cincinnati and, like Nitz, acquitted of all charges.    

In a separate civil suit involving Ebens and the Chin estate, Ebens was instructed to pay the Chin residence $1.5 million; however, he did not and presently still owes approximately $8 million dollars to the estate. 

Throughout Chin’s trial, his mother, Lily Chin, mourned and became the face of Asian American grief as well as advocacy. Through streaming tears and broken English, she kindled emotion and galvanized the Asian American community to action to combat anti-Asian violence and racism as a whole. 

“Lily Chin found the strength to speak to thousands of people at community gatherings, rallies, and demonstrations across the country, and even to appear on television”

—–Helen Zia

Written by Emma Choy

Sources