It’s been four decades since the murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American man who was beaten to death by two white men who worked in the auto industry.
Since then, there has not only been continued violence against Asian Americans but new, record-high levels of anti-Asian hate crimes. And while Chin’s death has been widely memorialized, the solidarity between Asian American and Black communities that emerged in its wake is often left out of the conversation.
Just as Black activists like the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. spoke out in the 1980s to demand justice for Chin, in recent years groups like Asian Americans for Black Lives have taken action against the killing of Black Americans such as Philando Castile, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery — despite our communities’ complex, and sometimes hostile, history.
