1982 Detroit was reeling from desperation and anger as job layoffs and high unemployment took over a community dominated for decades by the auto industry. As an entire city blamed their plight on foreign automobile manufacturers, anti-Asian sentiments ran especially high. That is when a Chinese-American named Vincent Chin was murdered by two white autoworkers. Chin's killers got off with a $3,000 fine and 3 years probation, but no jail time. Filmmaker Curtis Chin tells the story of hate and social injustice in his documentary, “Vincent Who?” Curtis Chin came to Taft recently to talk about the impact the case has had on his life, and to share his film with the Taft community.
“This was a big case growing up for me because [Vincent] was a family friend of ours,” Chin said. “It was a big shock to actually know someone who was murdered in that way, but then to find out that the justice system was going to let the killers off without serving a single day in jail…"
Vincent Chin was beaten to death on a Detroit street, after a night of celebration: It was his bachelor party. Earlier in the evening, one of men who would later bludgeon him with a baseball bat said, “It is because of you little [expletives] that we’re out of work”; the motive for the killing was clear.
Curtis Chin left Michigan after college and embarked on a successful career as a writer in Hollywood. His screen credits include writing for the sitcoms “Norm” and “According to Jim.” But he never quiet left Vincent Chin’s story behind.
“The case made a big impression on me growing up. Years later I thought back and wondered why people weren’t talking about it,” Curtis Chin told the Taft community.
In fact, in his documentary Curtis Chin makes his way through a college campus, asking student after student – primary Asian-American student after Asian-American student – if they have heard of Vincent Chin: Only one had a vague recollection of Vincent’s brutal murder.
Many see the Chin case as the heart and start of the Asian-American civil rights movement. In fact, in the film law professor and author Dr. Frank Wu notes that, “Before the Vincent Chin case, it is fair to say that there were not Asian-Americans.” The case marked the first time “the country united across ethnic and socioeconomic lines to form a pan-Asian identity and civil rights movement.”
Curtis Chin has taken his documentary and story to more than 200 college campuses. The Norweigan government recently invited him to speak, as did Amnesty International, London. Curtis Chin came to Taft as part of the Paduano Lecture Series in Philosophy and Ethics. Established in 1999 by Daniel P. and Nancy Paduano, parents of John P. Paduano, Class of 1999, the series funds a program of visiting speakers in support of the Philosophy, Religion, and Ethics Department at Taft. Visiting speakers, selected from diverse backgrounds and perspectives, address the students and faculty and visit classes during their stay at the school.