Who Is Vincent Chin? The History and Relevance of a 1982 Killing - NBC News

A Vincent Chin Syllabus of sorts--a collection of films and articles to learn more, at NBC Asian America:

“People forget. It’s been a long time ago. A whole generation has passed. It’s ancient history to them," Zia said.

“The Vincent Chin case forced Asian Americans into the civil rights discourse,” Roland Hwang co-founder and former president of American Citizens for Justice told NBC News. “The Vincent Chin case transformed a biracial discussion on race relations to be a multiracial one. So the Vincent Chin case, along with other cases, each serve as a wakeup call to address anti-Asian bias and racial intolerance.”

Who Is Vincent Chin? The History and Relevance of a 1982 Killing - NBC News

Voices: Who Is Vincent Chin? - NBC News

Powerful video: "Jubilee Project: Voices" is part of "NBC Asian America Presents...," a new video channel that will feature documentaries centered around themes and voices found in Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.

ft. Phil Yu Angry Asian Man, Tanzila Ahmed #GoodMuslimBadMuslim, Jenny Yang, etc

Voices: Who Is Vincent Chin? - NBC News

Terry Park's class today

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is chatting online today with Vanessa Teck for Terry Park's class at the University of Miami in Ohio about the Vincent Chin case.

Check it out today at 2:30 https://plus.google.com/u/1/events/c3ve8o09i22r859ssll6jfec6r8

Detroit Vincent Chin mural caught in the crossfire of a turf war

Statement from Grand River Creative Corridor:

Defacing of Vincent Chin Memorial mural in Detroit's Grand River Creative Corridor

Earlier this year we contacted international street artist Andrew Pisacane also known as "GAIA" about creating a mural in the Grand River Creative Corridor (GRCC) in Detroit, Michigan. We were attracted to GAIA's talent and his ability to create large scale murals that shed light on deep-rooted civil rights history. GAIA suggested doing memorial mural of Vincent Chin and provided an in depth history of his life and eventual death. Below outlines the series of events from the organization, creation, defacing, and removal of the Vincent Chin Memorial Mural:

May 2014- Details of the mural were organized and confirmed. GAIA requested that we make contact with Vincent Chin's family to approve and provide their blessing of the mural. We were led to the "American Citizens for Justice", "a nonprofit 501c3 organization serving the Asian Pacific American (APA) communities of Michigan and fighting for the civil rights of all Americans. It was founded in 1983 after the baseball beating death of Vincent Chin." Details and imagery were sorted out then mutually approved. Artist travel itinerary, accommodations, supplies, equipment and mural location were confirmed.

June 18, 2014- GAIA arrived to Detroit.

June 19, 2014- GAIA met building owner, created conversation, and building owner gave his blessing. The building owner respected the idea of a memorial mural and related to the challenges Vincent Chin faced. GAIA met Detroit graffiti artist SINTEX, who had previously had a mural on the wall. (All of the GRCC walls rotate artists every 1-3 years. Several other walls have been successfully rotate without any conflict.) GAIA explained his mural concept and SINTEX gave his blessing by saying "I've had my mural on the wall for a couple years now and now it's yours".

June 19- June 23, 2014- GAIA created the Vincent Chin Memorial Mural.

June 23, 2014- GAIA departed Detroit.

August 6, 2014- Over 100 Girl Scouts visited and toured the GRCC and were educated on the history of Vincent Chin. (see attached photo)

August 9, 2014 at 6:37am- Derek Weaver, founder and curator of the GRCC, received a text message from Detroit graffiti artist "SINTEX" that stated "The mural in the parking lot got hit..looks like justo...blk buff line all thru it..signature justo ..or justd". Derek living only 15 minutes, away drove to the mural to find that the black paint was still wet and dripping. Derek decided to try and save the mural and washed 90 percent of the black paint off with a water hose. From there, several Detroit artists offered to help fix the mural and plans were scheduled to do so.

August 11, 2014- SINTEX told Derek that the wall needed to be repainted. Derek then explained the plans to restore the mural. SINTEX expressed frustration and disapproval.

August 12, 2014- Derek received a phone call in the late afternoon from SINTEX demanding he purchase a 5 gallon of black paint to cover the mural. SINTEX stated that he spoke with the building owner and received his permission to repaint the wall. Derek told SINTEX not to repaint the wall until Derek had an opportunity to speak with the owner directly and reminded him that the wall was scheduled to be fixed.

August 13, 2014 at 7:35am- Derek received a text message from another artist that said "Omg 1/4 of the gaia mural is buffed". Derek arrived shortly thereafter and discovered that SINTEX had “buffed” the mural overnight. SINTEX accepted responsibility via Facebook posts/messages.

August 14 to Present- Several claims and threats have been made by SINTEX via Facebook, Instagram, in-person, and Phone/Text. SINTEX removed and painted over the remaining wall and started painting his own mural. He made several mentions that it was his wall and Detroit is a “No Fly Zone” and GAIA never had the right to paint it.

RESOLUTION

The Grand River Creative Corridor and the 4731 Arts Incubator will no longer support SINTEX financially or personally, his art, housing, or work space.

ABOUT SINTEX

SINTEX currently resides in the 4731 Art Incubator, located within the Grand River Creative Corridor. SINTEX was one of the lead artists in the early-age of the GRCC and painted 4 or 5 murals. SINTEX was provided a 6,000 square foot loft free of charged for 2 years. Recently, the City of Detroit inspected the loft and deemed it unsafe and uninhabitable for residential use. SINTEX was given notice in May of 2014 that his occupancy would be ending. SINTEX has made no indications of moving out of the loft.

ABOUT GAIA

GAIA is an international street artist based in Baltimore Maryland. He was invited to participate in the Grand River Creative Corridor and agreed to donate the mural to the community. GAIA visited Detroit at the end of 2013 to create a mural inside well-known Detroit business man Dan Gilbert’s parking garage. The mural was painted inside the “Z Garage” and organized by Matt Eaton of the Library Street Collective. GAIA has also participated in many other mural projects including Miami’s “Wynwood Walls”, Atlanta’s “Living Walls”, and GAIA also organizes a mural project in Baltimore called “Open Walls”. (GAIA’s full statement can be found at http://instagram.com/gaiastreetart)

STATEMENT FROM GRCC FOUNDER & CURATOR- DEREK WEAVER

“Public art is for anyone and everyone. It’s not restricted to the elite or confined inside the walls of an institution. It’s not about fighting over walls, murals, or creating conflict. It’s about creating a dialogue with the community…creating emotion, energy and positivity. The defacing of the recent Vincent Chin mural saddens all of us and is an indicator that the community in Detroit has some work to do. It shows that the “No Fly Zone” mentality still exists today and hinders the growth and the resurgence of the great city of Detroit. Our sincerest apologies to Vincent Chin, his family, the Asian American Center for Justice, and GAIA. We are happy we were able to provide the local community dialogue and enlightenment on the death of Vincent Chin during the short time the mural was up. We look forward to creating many more beautiful murals that help the community move forward.” -Derek Weaver

ABOUT THE GRAND RIVER CREATIVE CORRIDOR (GRCC)

The Grand River Creative Corridor, also known as “GRCC", is an art corridor and neighborhood revitalization project concentrated on Grand River Avenue between on a half-mile stretch just outside downtown Detroit, Michigan. Founded on July 15, 2012 by Derek Weaver, the project features over 100 murals on 15 buildings; an outdoor fine-art gallery at a bus stop; free-standing art installations; a cleanup of overgrown vegetation, trash, and vandalism; and an economic stimulus project for local businesses. The project involves over 100 local and international volunteer-artists and is an ongoing effort to transform Detroit’s infamous Grand River Avenue into a creative hub that attracts: tourists, artists, small businesses, entrepreneurs, and investors alike.

Previous media articles:

Popular Detroit artist defaces tribute to Asian American icon Vincent Chin | Motor City Muckraker

Muckraker: Well-Known Local Artist Defaces Vincent Chin Mural On Grand River  –  Deadline Detroit

Update: Chin Mural 'Defacing ... Saddens All Of Us,' Sponsoring Group Says –  Deadline Detroit

Update: Chin Mural 'Defacing ... Saddens All Of Us,' Sponsoring Group Says – Deadline Detroit

Update: Chin Mural 'Defacing ... Saddens All Of Us,' Sponsoring Group Says –  Deadline Detroit

Popular Detroit artist defaces tribute to Asian American icon Vincent Chin | Motor City Muckraker

Popular Detroit artist defaces tribute to Asian American icon Vincent Chin | Motor City Muckraker

Muckraker: Well-Known Local Artist Defaces Vincent Chin Mural On Grand River – Deadline Detroit

Muckraker: Well-Known Local Artist Defaces Vincent Chin Mural On Grand River  –  Deadline Detroit

Netroots Nation 2014 NN14 Screening of "Vincent Who?" - and Discussion of Race in Detroit- Eventbrite

from Curtis Chin: VINCENT WHO? screening and panel on race in Detroit (aka Race and the City) Friday, July 18, 2014, 6:30 - 8:00 pm, Cobo Hall, Room #142 C. Attendance is free, but if you're not attending the Netroots Nation 2014 conference, you must REGISTER HERE.
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/nn14-screening-of-vincent-who-and-discussion-of-race-in-detroit-tickets-12013820661

NN14 Screening of "Vincent Who?" - and Discussion of Race in Detroit- Eventbrite

18MillionRising | | In Search of Justice: Another Way to Remember Vincent Chin

beautiful reflection from 18 Million Rising New Media Director Cayden Mak on the legacy of Vincent Chin--and how it could change how we define "justice." http://bit.ly/1lpw1Zt

18MillionRising | | In Search of Justice: Another Way to Remember Vincent Chin

from PowerPAC+

From Washington D.C. · powerpacplus.org:

We are stronger when we speak up for each other within & across racial lines. #VincentChin #Truestory #neverforget pic.twitter.com/oiisZSHfMb
— PowerPAC+ (@PowerPAC_Plus) June 23, 2014

Who Killed Vincent Chin? | POV | PBS

And if you haven't seen Renee Tajima-Pena and Christine Choy's Academy Award nominated documentary film, "Who Killed Vincent Chin?" that is where you should start.

Synopsis

On a hot summer night in Detroit, Ronald Ebens, an autoworker, killed a young Chinese-American engineer with a baseball bat. Although he confessed, he never spent a day in jail. This gripping Academy Award-nominated film relentlessly probes the implications of the murder in the streets of Detroit, for the families of those involved, and for the American justice system.

Who Killed Vincent Chin? | POV | PBS

Vincent Who? - OFFICIAL MOVIE SITE - A Film On Vincent Chin

and the more recent film about all that has happened since the case, from Curtis Chin:

Vincent Who? - OFFICIAL MOVIE SITE - A Film On Vincent Chin

Love Letter from Helen Zia!

I shared the links to 18 Million Rising's post and the #iamvincentchin Tumblr as well as all the materials here at rememberingvincentchin.com with Helen Zia and the folks at American Citizens for Justice (ACJ) and...

"Frances,
Thanks so much for all the links to the final mural art and such moving testaments to Vincent, his mother and the movement to bring him justice. It all speaks to the importance of ACJ's work in advocacy and as keepers of the legacy of both Vincent and the movement that ACJ started.
Thanks to you all,
Helen"

:) So let's keep working...

more from Jon Jang:

more from jazz musician Jon Jang, reprinted with permission:

Just for the record, excuse the pun, all of the Asian American musicians who were on my recording ,Are You Chinese or Charlie Chan?, not only became leaders and recorded their first recording after this recording and the only time the five of played together, but were the same or close to the age of Vincent Chin: Glenn Horiuchi was two months older than Vincent and not on the recording, Mark Izu and Jon Jang a year apart from Vincent, Francis Wong, Fred Ho and Anthony Brown two years. It revivifies a new meaning to the statement,"It could have been me." According to Emeritus Professor Olly Wilson, the nascent awareness of institutionalizing of African American music studies came forth during a conference after the assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968.

What strikes me are the parallels between all those who were 27 at the time, and this new generation of young activists who are now 27. I'm honored and humbled to stand in between these conversations.

Blacklava V Chin (Vincent Chin) T Shirts

Do you have your Blacklava.net V Chin T-shirt? Sure fire conversation starter. Keep telling the story throughout the year. Thanks Ryan Suda!



V Chin (Vincent Chin) Women's T Shirt

V Chin (Vincent Chin) T Shirt

V Chin (Vincent Chin) 1 inch Pin Back Button

2002 Rededication to Justice Vincent Chin T-shirt

From Emily Lawsin, image and note reprinted with permission:

Tshirt designed by Ha-Hoa Hamano for 2002 Rededication to Justice: Vincent Chin 20th Year Remembrance, a 3-day Teach-In and Pilgrimage to the Gravesite in Detroit. The face includes names of hate crime victims. Rest in Peace, Vincent Chin (5/18/1955-6/23/1982).

Vincent Chin: Some Lessons and Legacies | Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

From Chris Fan at Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics, 2012:

What we can confidently say is this: nuance would not have saved Vincent Chin. The violence Ebens inflicted on Chin was a fatal performance of how racialization always works. Indeed, the tragedy of Chin’s death is not that Ebens was mistaken. On the contrary, Ebens and Nitz made Chin Japanese. The lesson of racialization that Chin’s murder makes so utterly clear is that race doesn’t exist outside the dynamics of power and violence.

This brings me to something that has always bothered me about narrations of Chin’s murder that has to do with this point about race and power. Nearly every account of the events of June 19 mentions Ebens’ misidentification of Chin’s ethnicity. This perplexes me not only because it is so dramatically beside the point, but also because it suggests that had Ebens known the truth of Chin’s race (whatever that would mean), things might have turned out differently. Chin might still be with us. He might have married his fiancée Vicki Wong, and he might have lived into ripe old age, as Ebens has. (Nitz was killed in a motorcycle accident.) The very premise of such a claim undermines the theories of racialization and power undergirding the Asian American movement.

And yet something about this narrative convention does make sense. The necessity of calling Ebens' attribution a mistake betrays a specific ideological desire. Lurking behind the coalitional power of the Asian American label is the promise that its efficacy will one day obsolesce, and on the heels of that glorious moment, the content of the ethnicities it strategically held together would be redeemed in a kind of multicultural Utopia.

It’s a beautiful idea. An inspirational one. But the fundamental question it poses is extremely difficult to contend with: Can we construct our own racial identity?

Because race never belongs exclusively to the oppressed or the oppressor, the answer can only be a brutish "no." I'd argue, however, that one of the central legacies of Chin’s murder is that sometimes impossibility must be forced into the realm of possibility. If Chin's death and Kaufman's decision gave birth to the impossible community of Asian America, then our task now is to use all the tools at our disposal -- cultural, legal, social -- to brutishly wrench that "no" into a determined "yes." If we owe Chin anything, we owe him that.

- See more at: http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/blog/archive/2012/06/vincent-chin-some-lessons-and-legacies#sthash.NOao4dKu.dpuf

Vincent Chin: Some Lessons and Legacies | Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

#IAmVincentChin: Never Forget - Project Ava

From Vanessa Teck at Project Ava:

In order to commemorate the legacy of Vincent Chin, Project Ava has partnered with Reappropriate and Fascianasians to gather stories of how Vincent Chin has impacted our friends, families, and communities.

#IAmVincentChin: Never Forget - Project Ava

letter from Stephanie Chang

Excerpted from a June 23, 2014 letter from Stephanie Chang who is running for State Representative in Michigan House District 6 (Detroit, River Rouge, Ecorse), reprinted with permission:

On this day in 1982, Vincent Chin, a Chinese American man, died four days after a brutal baseball bat beating by two white men in Highland Park.

This took place during times of heightened tension due to the struggling U.S. auto industry at the time. Instead of going to his wedding, his friends and family attended his funeral. Asian Americans across ethnic lines came together and organized for justice when they realized his attackers never served a full day in jail. The incident galvanized a pan-Asian American movement.

Learning about the details of the Vincent Chin case when I was in high school spurred me to want to become more active on civil rights and social justice issues. I wanted to learn and do more, especially across ethnic and racial lines. Reading about the case was a catalytic moment for me as a young activist. Learning about the Chin case led me to learn more about and later work on issues such as affirmative action, voting rights, education equity, and more.

Fifty years ago, several young men lost their lives in the name of freedom and the right to vote. In 1962, less than 7 percent of eligible Black voters were registered in Mississippi. Freedom Summer activists made great personal sacrifices so that all people could have the right to vote, as they worked alongside local residents in Mississippi. Volunteers organized Freedom Schools, registered voters, and more. At least four activists were killed, more were wounded, and over a thousand were arrested. I know that the rights we have today are due to the blood and tears shed by many who came before us.

Making sure that everyone has access to our country's democratic process became one passion of mine. I have registered people to vote, organized Election Day efforts in the Asian American community to protect the right to vote, testified on voting rights issues and redistricting, and met with several local clerks about translating election materials so that everyone can accurately cast their vote.

As long as there are efforts to suppress the vote, we have more work to do. I will be a strong voice for voting rights when elected to the Michigan State House.

Will you encourage 10 of your friends to vote in the August 5th primary this year?

With gratitude,

Stephanie Chang

To learn more about this Stephanie Chang's campaign, please check out stephaniechang.com.

Blog: Remembering Vincent Chin: The Passion and Agony of a Community - AALDEF

from Emil Guillermo (oh that hair!) at Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund:

Vincent Chin and I were both Asian Americans who grew up at the same time.
We were the same age. Even shared a hairstyle.

Blog: Remembering Vincent Chin: The Passion and Agony of a Community - AALDEF