WHO IS VINCENT CHIN?

On a warm summer’s morning just outside of Detroit, Michigan, a 27 year-old Chinese American man awoke—happy with anticipation. He was to be married in a few days and it seemed that everyone his family knew would be there to celebrate his marriage—more than 400 guests in all. He was also excited because, that night after he worked his second job, some buddies were taking him out for a good, old-fashioned bachelor party. He was a popular, happy-go-lucky guy who made friends easily, and among his party pals tonight was Gary, his best friend from childhood. It was June 19, 1982. That day, which had begun so bright and promising, would end in a terrible tragedy. The young man’s name was Vincent Chin. He could not have known that his name would become a rallying cry for Asian Americans, that his death would spark a movement for social justice and that his story would live on, far after his untimely death. For the previous several decades, two out of three Asian Americans were immigrants—and so was Vincent Chin, who arrived in the United States as a child. His early years were spent at an orphanage in Guangdong province in southern China—the same region where his adoptive parents, Lily and C.W. Hing Chin, were from. They had selected him, based on his photo. Lily said he looked like such a sweet, intelligent child that they initiated international adoption proceedings, which took years to complete. By then, Vincent was six years old. Detroit, Michigan was where his life in America began. His father, C.W., had arrived from China in 1922 at the age of 17, settling in Detroit. In the early 20th century, when Detroit’s young auto industry was booming and a great migration of Black and white workers from the South was streaming to the Motor City, there were also more than 300 Chinese laundries to service the well-paid factory workers. That’s where C.W. Chin found work, in long hours each day spent sorting through dirty clothes, washing, ironing and wrapping from early morning until late at night for pennies, sometimes netting only two dollars for the whole week. The only break from toiling in the laundries came for C.W. in the 1940s, when he was already in his late 30s: he enlisted in the US Army during World War II, becoming one of the 18,000 Chinese American men and women who joined the US military to do their patriotic duty. When he returned to Detroit, it was back to the laundries—but there was a difference: US immigration laws that had excluded Chinese and all Asians from America gradually began to change after the war ended. In the 1800s, harsh exclusionary laws at federal, state and local levels had turned Chinatowns into bachelor societies without the possibility of family life for the vast majority of men. Chinese women, all labeled as immoral, had been barred from entering

the US ever since the federal Page Act of 1875, and Chinese men, all considered “unassimilable,” were excluded in 1882 from immigrating to the US and from ever becoming naturalized citizens. A host of other restrictions were later extended to all Asians in America. After World War II, Chinese American veterans were not only permitted to become citizens of the country they fought for, but also men were allowed to find a wife in China and to bring their “war brides” home to America. This about-face had more to do with US-China relations than about righting the inhumane conditions of Chinese in America, but finally, Chinese American families could be established. US Army veteran C.W. Chin chose Lily, a vivacious 27-year-old, to be his bride, bringing her to Detroit in 1948 from her hometown of Hoiping (Kaiping). She, too, began to work in the laundry. As with many immigrants, it was a family business and they lived in the back of the shop. Some members of Lily’s family tried to dissuade her from going to America because they knew too well of the dangers. Her great-grandfather had worked on the transcontinental railroad but he hastened back to China when white mobs burned down Chinatowns, lynched and massacred Chinese to “drive out” and ethnically cleanse all Chinese from America. Lily’s family heard the stories of anti-Chinese racism in America and warned Lily that her life would be hard. Forewarned yet undeterred, she married C.W. and prepared to start her family in Detroit. In many ways, Vincent’s family was typical of generations of Chinese who migrated from the southern province of Guangdong and made up the mainstay of Chinatowns. These hardscrabble people shared the Toisanese culture and dialect of the Pearl River Delta and had collectively experienced the political instabilities and economic catastrophes that forced them to seek work in distant lands—crises fueled in part by British and American imperialism and opium drug trafficking. Many were brought to the Americas and Caribbean for their labor as indentured workers to replace formerly enslaved Black people. Others were recruited to build the railroads. But wherever these Chinese working people went, when their contracted labor was done, they faced intense discrimination and were limited to working only as menial labor doing jobs that white men didn’t want: as stoop labor in agriculture, or as cooks and laundrymen. Asian Americans were stunned to learn that someone with such a familiar story could meet a horrific end. They felt deeply that what happened to Vincent Chin could have happened to themselves and to any other person who “looked” Japanese. To many, Vincent symbolized everyone’s son, brother, boyfriend, husband or father. So many Asian Americans have experienced being mistaken for other Asian ethnicities, even being harassed and called names as though every Asian group was the same. The climate of anti-Asian hostility made everyone feel unsafe, not just in Detroit and the industrial Midwest, but across the country as the Japan-bashing began to emanate from the nation’s capital and amplified through the news media. If Vincent Chin could be harassed, brutally beaten to death, and his killers freed, people felt it could happen to their own loved ones. By the time the Lily and C.W. Chin adopted Vincent, C.W. was almost 60. He was an active participant in Detroit’s Chinese American community that would gather in Chinatown, then located in the Cass Corridor. At the Detroit Chinese Welfare Council center, he played mahjong, fan tan and pai gow in secret gambling halls that were the social centers bonding generations of Chinatown bachelor-laborers. C.W. introduced his son Vincent to those Chinatown clubs. In 1981, C.W. died at the age of 76, after a lifetime spent toiling in laundries, six months before Vincent’s wedding was to take place. An American flag draped his casket to honor of his role in the US Army, defending the US even though for years he

had been denied the opportunity to become a citizen until the geopolitics of war slightly opened America’s immigration gates to Chinese. Vincent treasured that flag until he was slain by killers who didn’t think he looked American enough. Vincent’s friends and coworkers were shocked that he had been provoked into a fight. No one had seen him get angry. He had always been an easygoing young man, a devoted only child who helped support his parents financially. In high school, he had been on the track team and enjoyed hanging out with his buddies or spending a lazy afternoon fishing. He had a sensitive side, too, as a bookworm who wrote poetry. Without exception, Vincent’s friends describe him as an energetic, friendly guy who could get along with everybody but also knew how to stand up for himself and navigate the streets of Detroit. His friends thought of him as a regular Detroit guy who happened to be of Chinese descent. Like other Americans, Vincent knew little of the history of past generations of Asians in America. But he had witnessed the hardships of his immigrant parents and was looking for a house, along with his bride-to-be, where his mother Lily could also live. To help pay for his soon-to-be married life, Vincent worked two jobs—during the day, he was a drafts-

man; on weekends, he worked as a waiter. But his sights were aimed higher: he was a recent graduate of Control Data Institute, a computer trade school, and was planning to continue his education at night with Lawrence Institute of Technology where he hoped to get an engineering degree. Many Chinese Americans saw What happened their own stories mirrored in Vincent, Lily and C.W. Chin’s lives in to Vincent could America, from their hardscrabble Toisanese roots and the military have happened service that made it possible for to anyone C.W. and Lily to marry, to their lives spent toiling in restaurants who “looked” and laundries. Vincent was part of

Japanese an Americanized generation whose Asian immigrant parents had suffered and sacrificed. Many of those Asian immigrants had fled from politically fraught countries. They urged their children to keep a low profile and stay out of trouble by not getting involved in politics or controversy. Their children, however, were raised with American notions of standing up for one’s ideals to have a voice in this democracy. Yet both believed that their vision offered the path to attaining acceptance and the American dream. The injustice surrounding Vincent’s slaying shattered the dream.

C.W. Hing Chin (right) fought for America as a GI in World War II, but his son Vincent was seen as the enemy.

Conversation Questions

» What did you know about Vincent

Chin before reading this article, and what new information did you learn? » How does Vincent Chin’s story connect to a longer history of Asians in America? » To scapegoat means that someone is blamed publicly for something bad that has happened, even though it is not their fault. What are the effects of scapegoating Asian and Asian

American communities, and other communities of color? » What is your biggest takeaway from this article about Vincent Chin? Why is Vincent Chin’s story important to talk about today?