June 14, 2002 -- Nightmare. For Asian Americans, the murder of Vincent Chin was their worst nightmare come true -- Chin was killed simply because he was an Asian.

On June 19, 1982, when Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, two unemployed Detroit autoworkers, bludgeoned Chin to death, they neither knew him nor cared who he was as a person. It mattered little that he was a Chinese American, rather than Japanese or even Japanese American.

After all, Ebens and Nitz called him both a "Chink" and a "Nip" -- racial slurs that referred to Chinese and Japanese, respectively. During their confrontation, they said to him, "It's because of you little motherfuckers that we're out of work."

As far as they were concerned, Chin was some "species" of Asian who had deprived them of their livelihood, and they intended to deprive him of his life.

In 1982, Detroit's automotive industry was in the midst of an economic depression, having lost the competition for consumers to Japanese automakers who were producing superior cars for the American market. Rather than criticize the American automakers for their inability to compete successfully, people blamed the Japanese people, giving rise to widespread anti-Japanese feeling.

In this economic competition, Eben and Nitz had become two of the "losers" and were set adrift in American society. In contrast Chin was gainfully employed, working as a draftsman at a local engineering firm; moreover, he was a young man on the town celebrating his impending wedding, a young man with his whole life ahead of him.

In what can only be described as a fit of racial hatred exacerbated by envy, Ebens and Nitz hunted Chin down and executed him for their personal plight.

What shocked Asian Americans was the realization that a similar act of violence could be visited upon them at any time. During times of conflict (economic and otherwise) between Americans and Asians the possibility of violence against them was even greater. And there was nothing they could do to prevent it from happening.

With Vincent Chin's murder, every imaginable problem they ever dreaded -- nativism, racism, scapegoatism, gookism -- reared their ugly heads. His murder made them apprehend as never before that whites saw them as an undifferentiated mass and understood them only in stereotypical terms, that they were taken at "face-value" and condemned to be perpetual foreigners in their own country.

What made their situation even more precarious was they could expect no protection from the law. For their crime, Ebens and Nitz pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were placed on probation, fined the paltry sum of $3,000 and required to pay $780 in court costs.

Judge Charles Kaufman explained that the punishment should fit the criminals rather than the crime. Many Asian Americans felt this meant any white man could kill a Chinese American man with impunity.

The 19th-century expression "Not a Chinaman's Chance" had in the 20th century been updated to "Not an Asian American's Chance." Understandably, Kaufman's verdict deepened the cynicism about justice in America for some Asian Americans.

Unexpectedly, Kaufman's decision had a markedly different effect on many other Asian Americans. They were so outraged that they took the extraordinary step of organizing themselves into civil rights groups that cut across Asian ethnic lines to attain justice for Vincent Chin.

The Americans for Justice organization, along with allied civil rights groups, sought to bring Ebens and Nitz to account, successfully pressuring the Justice Department to prosecute them for violating Chin's civil rights. This prosecution was unprecedented as the first criminal civil rights case involving an Asian American victim.

In 1984, a jury found Ebens guilty and sentenced him to 25 years in prison; Nitz was found innocent of the crime. Upon appeal, Ebens's conviction was overturned on a legal technicality. In 1987, Ebens was retried, only to be found innocent by a jury, who some say, was influenced by an anti-Asian climate. That same year, a civil suit ordered Ebens to pay $1.5 million to Chin's estate but he fled and has evaded the law ever since.

Even though it appears justice was thwarted, it is important to remember that Vincent Chin did not die in vain. On the contrary, he left an enormous legacy to all Americans, especially Asian Americans.

His death raised the consciousness of people about hate crimes against Asian Americans and served as a catalyst for Asian Americans to look beyond their individual Asian ethnic communities to organize against anti-Asian violence. His tragedy inspired a generation of Asian American students to pursue legal careers so that never again would the Asian American community be defenseless against racist attacks. Finally, Vincent Chin's story has become a milestone in the Asian American struggle for racial equality and political empowerment.

The 20th anniversary of Vincent Chin's death reminds us all of the need to be constantly vigilant against the forces of intolerance that are still with us today and to oppose them whenever they appear, as they surely will until intolerance ends.

Dr. William Wei is a professor at the University of Colorado and a national expert on Asian American culture. He can be reached at William.Wei@Colorado.EDU

>> DO SOMETHING: Read an article from Asian Week written on the 15th anniversary of Chin's death. Go