Navigator: When Asian Americans Became the Target
In 1982, a Chinese American named Vincent Chin was brutally beaten to death by two recently laid off autoworkers who’d mistaken him for Japanese. Above, his mother Lillie Chin breaks down while leaving Detroit's City County Building. She had asked for a tougher sentence of 15 years in prison for the men, who were sentenced to three years probation. Asian-American activists today fear similarly light punishments for recent crimes in U.S. Chinatowns.
Photographer: Bettmann
Welcome to today's edition of Navigator, CityLab's biweekly Saturday newsletter.
Last March, my friend and I hung out for what would be the last time in months as the Washington, D.C., area went on lockdown. Those of us in the U.S. were only beginning to understand the havoc the novel coronavirus would wreak on the bodies of its victims, and on the already-fragile racial fabric of the country.