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REMEMBER VINCENT CHIN (2 of 3)
Ebens and Nitz dnot serve one full day in jail and paid a $3,780 fine
for murdering Vincent Chin. Judge Charles Kaufman presided over the initial
case and justified this light sentence by saying “You fit the punishment
to the criminal, not the crime.” In this judge’s opinion,
the life of Vincent Chin was worth only $3,780. Though the case was pursued
in the federal courts, nothing changed and in the end, Ebens and Nitz
paid only a few thousand dollars for brutally murdering Vincent Chin.
Vincent Chin’s murder has become a landmark tragedy because it is
commonly thought of as a pivotal point in Asian Pacific American history.
APAs from all ethnic and class backgrounds rallied around this case. Students
in college courses are learning about this tragedy through the tremendous
work of Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Pe_a in their Academy Award nominated
film “Who Killed Vincent Chin.” I wonder, however, as a community,
how much did we really learn from the murder of Vincent Chin?
The gruesome Chin murder forced us to ask deeper questions and seek more
complicated answers. It is elementary to answer the question “Who
Killed Vincent Chin;” Ron Ebens and Mike Nitz killed him. But a
more complicated answer is white America’s creation of the “Yellow
Peril” stereotype killed Vincent Chin. The anti-Japanese and anti-Asian
fervor in the U.S. reached levels not seen since Pearl Harbor. Corporations,
elected officials and celebrities alike were drawing comparisons between
the sudden rise in Japanese automobiles to the invasion of Pearl Harbor.
The Chin case forced us to ask questions about how as a community we interfaced
with the state and the courts when our civil rights were violated. Have
we successfully and faithfully applied these lessons since his murder?
The 1992 L.A. uprising forced us to ask questions about not only how as
an APA community we interface with the state and the courts, but how we
interface with other communities as well. The questions that might have
gotten lost in the shuffle centered around what conditions existed and
were put in place to create the circumstances that pit Korean Americans
against African Americans?
In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, have we failed to
ask the deeper and broader questions that the Chin murder case taught
us to ask? Where was the massive public outrage over the 1,400+ Arab,
Arab Americans, Middle Easterners and other “non-whites” being
detained without regard to their civil rights? How critical have we been
to the steady flow of legislation being passed in the name of “homeland
security” that violates our basic civil rights?
Remember Vincent Chin 3: Other Issues
