People talk so much about intersectionality these days, I like to joke, “Is that where MacArthur crosses Broadway in Oakland?” 

But when it comes to Juneteenth we have a genuine opportunity for Black and Asian solidarity.

Have you ever thought about Juneteenth and Vincent Chin’s June 19^th? 

On June 19^th, 1982 in Detroit, Ronald Ebens, a white auto worker, got in a fight with Chin that ended up with Ebens striking Chin twice to the head with a baseball bat. Chin was in a coma until he died on June 23.

Ebens’ murder of Chin is considered the most infamous individual hate crime in Asian American history, mostly because the murderer has done no time for the crime. 

Still alive at 81, Ebens has not only skirted prosecution in the criminal matter; he has skillfully used bankruptcy and homesteading laws in Nevada to avoid a wrongful death civil suit settlement. Ordered by the court in 1987 to pay $1.5 million to Chin’s family, the Chin estate has received nothing for the last 34 years.

That sense of delayed justice is no less than the extension of the crime itself—one thing the Chin case has in common with Juneteenth. Blacks in Texas were working as slaves for more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Nobody bothered to tell them that overtime for slavery was now illegal in the United States.

Once you understand the purposeful ignorance that allowed slavery to be extended beyond its time, you understand how those subjected to this and their descendants deserve a whole lot more than a federal holiday.

Asian Americans don’t need a holiday, but they should appreciate the irony of the coincidence with Juneteenth.

After his attack on June 19^th, Chin was in a coma on the 20th, the 21st, and the 22^nd. On the 23rd , Chin didn’t wake up.

But an entire generation of Asian Americans did.

For those born in the Civil Rights Era, Chin was the cue  for a new wave of Asian Americans ready to take part in the coalition for social justice.

Since then, the Asian American population has grown to more than 23 million people. And now, a new generation is discovering the impact and the importance of the Chin case, in a time when more than 6,600 hate instances have occurred, fueled in a pandemic era by a scapegoating Republican administration.

Much has been made of viral images of black perps attacking mostly older Asian Americans. Don’t be fooled into making a knee-jerk generalization.  

The University of Michigan’s Virulent Hate Project reviewed 4,337 news articles between January 1 and December 31, 2020, and identified 1,023 incidents of anti-Asian racism.

The victims were across all AAPI ethnicities, but were mostly women (65 percent) and people of Chinese descent (58 percent). 

The perps? The study showed “the majority of the offenders were identified as male and white.” 

Seven years ago, I wrote a column proposing that the four days between June 19th and the 23^rd be used by Asian Americans to reflect what it means to be Asian American now.

 What does it take to stand up for a sense of ourselves? Our community? Our personal and public identity? What does real equality, real justice, mean today? Have we reached that place? Are we still far short? Why are some of us still asking “Vincent Who?”

We don’t need a federal holiday, but we do need time to understand what the Chin case and the last 39 years say about the state of Asian America. And how we are in solidarity with Black and Latinx communities as we seek to be seen and heard.

Setting aside the time when Chin was in a coma is a good time to reflect on it all.  We begin with the celebration of Juneteenth to give us hope. On the very same day, we begin our personal remembrance of brother Vincent.

When Chin died, Asian America came alive.

Christy Price

Posts by Christy Price