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发帖数: 5637 | 1 讲到亚裔美国史（Asian Study),一个不能不提的名字就是Vincent Chin。其实前几天
就是他被种族仇恨者用棒球棍活活打死30年的祭日。
当时美国经济危机，日本却很强大。但是底特律的汽车工人以为Vincent Chin是日本人
就因为仇恨把他打死。凶手却一天牢也没有坐。
最近Pew Research的文章把亚裔又鼓吹成美国的“model minority”，其实大家真的应
该居安思危。毕竟还是很多美国人还是对亚裔有些种族歧视的。下面这篇加大校长
Frank Wu的文章真的值得大家好好看看。
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这是维基对他的简单介绍：
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%99%B3%E6%9E%9C%E4%BB%81
陳果仁（1955年－1982年6月23日），美籍華人。1982年6月23日，在美國密歇根州底特
律的飛地高地公園郡（Highland Park）被克萊斯勒公司一名車間主管羅納德·艾班斯
（Ronald Ebens）及其繼子邁克爾·尼茲（Michael Nitz）利用棒球棍毆打致死。雖然
這兩名男子認罪，但法官卻輕判了這起謀殺案，由此引發了民眾大規模的不滿和抗議。
因為兩名兇手利用棒球棒毆打陳果仁的行為非常符合仇恨罪的定義。
1979年，由於日本汽車公司的衝擊，底特律的汽車製造工業陷入低谷，不少工人被解雇
，其中就包括邁克爾·尼茲。因而造成了底特律汽車工人對日本人的仇恨，而最先遭受
到種族歧視的卻是美籍華人，陳果仁在生前便收到了有關種族歧視的警告。[2]在美國
亞裔族群的抗議下，這件案子的焦點轉變成羅納德·艾班斯（Ronald Ebens）和邁克爾
·尼茲（Michael Nitz）對陳果仁公民權利的侵犯。迫於壓力，美國聯邦法院在州法院
審判之後再度審理了這起謀殺案。因此有評論認為，陳果仁謀殺案引發了全美亞裔族群
人士的泛民族運動。
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A5Qd3GHVJ8
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/23/opinion/why-vincent-chin-matt
Why Vincent Chin Matters
By FRANK H. WU
Published: June 22, 2012
San Francisco
ON June 23, 1982, in Detroit, a young man named Vincent Chin died. Four
nights earlier, he had been enjoying his bachelor party with friends at a
local bar when they were accosted by two white men, who blamed them for the
success of Japan’s auto industry.
“It’s because of you we’re out of work,” they were said to have shouted,
adding a word that can’t be printed here. The men bludgeoned Mr. Chin, 27,
with a baseball bat until his head cracked open.
The men — a Chrysler plant supervisor named Ronald Ebens and his stepson,
Michael Nitz — never denied the acts, but they insisted that the matter was
simply a bar brawl that had ended badly for one of the parties. In an
agreement with prosecutors, they pleaded to manslaughter (down from second-
degree murder) and were sentenced to three years of probation and fined $3,
000.
I was a Chinese-American teenager growing up near Detroit then. I remember
the haunting photograph of a smiling, fresh-faced Mr. Chin, shown repeatedly
in newspapers and on TV, and the tears of his mother, Lily Chin, who
lamented that his killers had escaped justice. Mr. Chin was buried on the
day he was to have been married.
The killing catalyzed political activity among Asian-Americans — whose
numbers had steadily increased since the 1965 overhaul of immigration laws
but who then represented only about 1.5 percent of the population — as
never before. “Remember Vincent Chin” turned into a rallying cry; for the
first time, Asian-Americans of every background angrily protested in cities
across the country. For all that Asians had been through — racial exclusion
, starting with a ban on Chinese migrant labor in 1882; the unconstitutional
detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II; the legacy of America
’s wars in the Philippines, Korea and Vietnam — no single episode
involving an individual Asian-American had ever had such an effect before.
And none has since.
The circumstances of the Chin case were no accident. The early 1980s were,
like now, a time of malaise. The unemployment rate was at its highest since
World War II; inflation was stuck in the double digits; “Japan Inc.”
threatened to devour not only Detroit manufacturing but also New York real
estate. White flight had emptied a great metropolis that once stood for
industrial progress. Imported cars became a hated symbol of foreign
encroachment.
Spurred by Asian-American activists, federal prosecutors brought civil
rights charges against the two assailants in 1983. (The men denied using
racial epithets, as some witnesses had reported.) The stepfather, Mr. Ebens,
was convicted of violating Mr. Chin’s civil rights and sentenced to 25
years in prison, but the conviction was overturned on appeal.
The Chin case showed the power of the saying “You all look the same.” An
assimilated son of Chinese immigrants somehow came to be identified with
Japanese automakers. (That Asian-Americans made up much of the engineering
force at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler seems not to have occurred to the
attackers.)
“Asian-Americans” — a term that many Asian-Americans themselves do not
use — are, of course, more a demographic category than a community arising
from shared language, religion, history or culture. Yet for all our
diversity, we share an experience of otherness. The fifth-generation
Japanese-American from California, the Hmong refugee in Wisconsin, the
Indian engineer in Texas, the Korean adoptee in Chicago and the Pakistani
taxi driver in New York — all have at times been made to feel alien,
sometimes immutably so.
Thirty years after Mr. Chin’s death, hate crimes seem to be a remote threat
for Asian-Americans. But it is premature, if tempting, to celebrate
progress.
On Tuesday, a Pew Research Center study, “The Rise of Asian-Americans,”
reported that Asians overtook Hispanics in 2009 as the country’s fastest-
growing ethnic group and now represent 5.8 percent of the population. It
reported that Asian-Americans, on the whole, have higher incomes and better
educations than whites, blacks or Latinos.
Though the study noted that discrimination, poverty and language barriers
still confront refugees, undocumented immigrants and other vulnerable groups
, Asian-American advocates for social justice winced. Despite decades of
debunking by social scientists and historians, the model minority myth —
Asian-Americans as overachieving nerds — persists. The study was based on a
rigorous survey, though relying on self-reported attitudes and behaviors is
not a fireproof methodology.
But the more important criticism is this: When it comes to race, nuance
matters. The Pew findings encourage us to consider how positive attitudes
may contribute to socioeconomic success. But history also teaches us that
before Asian-Americans were seen as model minorities, we were also perpetual
foreigners. Taken together, these perceptions can lead to resentment. And
resentment can lead to hate.
Vincent Chin has lived longer in memory than reality. Today China, not Japan
, is on the rise. Another recession has come to an uneasy close. Detroit
limps along. Asian-Americans, through increasing civic participation, have
asserted themselves as members of the body politic and reached some of the
highest offices in government, academia and business.
Asian-Americans who have achieved success owe a debt to the agitators who
followed the Chin case, often defying their own cultural backgrounds as well
as the stereotype of passivity and quiescence. Everyone who cares about the
promise of our increasingly diverse nation ought to see in this case the
possibility of social change arising from tragic violence.
Frank H. Wu, chancellor and dean of the Hastings College of the Law,
University of California, is the author of “Yellow: Race in America Beyond
Black and White.” He is writing a book on the Vincent Chin case. |
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