Ferndale To Honor Vincent Chin, Asian Pacific American Movement

In 1982, Vincent Chin was beaten to death outside of a Highland Park bar by two men with a baseball bat. His assailants were two out-of-work auto employees who blamed Asians for their job losses and the globalization of the auto industry.

This racially charged murder signified the birth of the Asian Pacific American movement. It began out of the Golden Star restaurant on Woodward in Ferndale where the  is now. Chin had worked there as a waiter on the weekends.

Wednesday at noon, the State Bar of Michigan will dedicate its 34th Legal Milestone Marker plaque to Chin and the Asian Pacific American movement. The memorial will be erected on the median at the intersection of Nine Mile and Woodward, in clear view of where the movement started.

The movement stemmed from the brutality of Chin's murder and the lenient sentence of the two men involved. They were convicted of manslaughter and given a $3,000 fine and three years probation, but no jail sentence.

The case galvanized and motivated the Asian-American community and groups of Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and Korean Americans started gathering at the Golden Star restaurant. For the first time in history, these groups from a variety of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds organized to seek justice and civil rights protections for Asian Americans as a unified group.  

One of the key Asian Pacific American organizations that came from these meetings was the American Citizens for Justice, which worked to secure a retrial of Chin's assailants and increase awareness regarding the concerns of Asian Americans. The case has been in and out of the court system since March 1983.

"The murder of Vincent Chin back in the '80s was a terrible violation of the American Dream which promises that all people are welcome here and should be free from discrimination," Ferndale Mayor Craig Covey said in a release. "The court case that let his murderers go was a blood red stain on our society that promises equal justice. By installing this memorial, we in Ferndale stand with others who say that we embrace diversity, fairness, and justice for all Americans, regardless of their skin color, religion, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, or for any other reason."

The ceremony for the dedication is scheduled to begin at noon at the Post Bar (formerly Golden Star). Mayor Craig Covey is to speak along with Janet Welch of the Michigan State Bar Association and a representative of from the American Citizens for Justice.

Correction: Vincent Chin died in 1982.