Vincent Chin's Grim Anniversary -- Racial Killing In '82 Spurs Seattle Rally
Maybe the stock description of the death of Vincent Chin is all wrong.
Perhaps he did not die in vain.
At least it did not seem that way last night in the International District where about 75 Asian Americans held a rally against racially motivated violence and a vigil marking the 10 years since Chin's death.
The death of Chin reminds many Asian Americans that racism persists.
Chin lived in Detroit. He was beaten to death in 1982 with a baseball bat by two men who blamed their act on the recession in the auto industry caused in part by competition from Japanese car makers.
But Chin was Chinese American - not Japanese. In a result that infuriated many Asian Americans, Chin's assailants were convicted on a plea-bargained manslaughter charge and given three years' probation and a $3,800 fine.
One of them eventually was convicted on a civil-rights charge but the perception exists among many Asian Americans that their lives are not worth much.
That certainly was the message of the Seoul Brothers. Michael Park, 23, and his brother, Raphael, 21, who both attend the University of Washington, performed a rap song that expressed their anger and pride as Korean Americans.
Michael Park introduced the song with an endorsement of Korean Americans who during the recent Los Angeles riots armed themselves to protect their homes and businesses.
"We're here to remember Vincent Chin and remember the injustice that happened so that we can build community support to avoid this kind of thing in the future," said Michael Park, whose stage name is Siko MC.
Yet this kind of thing has continued unabated after the Chin killing.
It has become easier to count the number of racially motivated crimes against people since reporting procedures for "hate crimes" were instituted last year.
From July 1991 to December 1991, 211 such crimes were reported.
About half of these were categorized as racially motivated, and about 10 percent were against Asian Americans, said Patricia Lee, executive director of the state Commission on Asian American Affairs.
Mike Yoshitomi, who watched the rally from near Maynard Avenue South with his 7-month-old daughter, Kaila, said he thinks expressions of racism are more open these days.
He placed the blame on the sluggish national economy. "Somehow, when things are not going the way people would like," he said, "they feel they can lash out at others, especially minorities."
The U.S. Civil Rights Commission, in a report on the nation's 7.3 million Asian Americans earlier this year, said violence against them "remains a serious national problem."
One of the reasons, the commission said, is that Asian Americans, no matter what their ancestry, are perceived by the majority to be associated with Japan.
For reasons having to do with World War II and with today's international economy, Japan carries a lot of baggage in the United States.
The commission offered such remedies as a greater federal effort to prevent hate crimes, more aggressive efforts by police agencies to hire Asian Americans and better reporting on hate crimes by the media.
Carol Kamiyama, who was born in an internment camp in Arizona, drove down from Everett last night to lend her support to the rally.
She drew some attention because, when other people gripped lit candles at the rally's close, she held aloft a lantern. She looked somehow noble, as if she were trying to shed light on the shadowy scourge of bigotry.
`I think it's important to remember that racism still exists in America, and, as a Japanese American, I experience racism and I don't think it belongs anymore in America," she said. `"t's past the time for racism."