Who Killed Vincent Chin? Collection, 1992

On June 19, 1982, a 27-year-old Chinese American man was beaten into a coma that he never woke up from. He was targeted because the two men that assaulted him thought that he was Japanese and blamed him for the decline in the Detroit auto industry. The two men never saw any jail time, with the judge stating, “These weren’t the kind of men you send to jail…You don’t make the punishment fit the crime; you make the punishment fit the criminal.”

In 1987, documentary filmmakers Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Pena made the documentary Who Killed Vincent Chin? The film delves into the facts about the case and aftermath of the ruling. The filmmakers collected news footage, fliers, transcripts, and other materials, which they would later donated to MOCA in 1992.

在1982年6月19日,一位二十七岁的华裔美籍男子被殴打致昏迷,且再也没有醒过来。他之所以成为目标,是因为殴打他的两个人认为他是日本人,并指责他应为底特律汽车业的萧条负责。然而,由于法官表示:“这两位不是会被送进监狱的人……你不会将惩罚用于犯罪,而是将惩罚用于罪犯,”因此这两名男子并没有面临任何的刑期。

1987年,电影制作人崔明慧(Christine Choy)与蕾妮‧田岛-佩尼亚(Renee Tajima-Pena)拍摄了一部纪录片《谁杀了陈果仁?》(Who Killed Vincent Chin?),该片深入研究了事件经过与裁决的后续。这两位电影人搜集了许多新闻片段、传单、记录稿以及其他材料,并于1992年将这些文物赠与美国华人博物馆。