Royal Oak Public Library Film Club

This is a meeting of the Royal Oak Public Library Film Club.  We meet each month to discuss a movie on Kanopy that we have watched on our own before the discussion. There are not that many venues anymore that show independent films, and even less opportunity to discuss films. But there are so many good movies out there that demand our active engagement. This club is a chance to really take film seriously, to watch it passionately and critically, and discuss it with fellow film enthusiasts. 

This month, in honor of Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month, as well as the Great Michigan Read - this year's book being Curtis Chin's memoir Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant - we will be showing Vincent Who. It can be watched here. 

Synopsis:

In 1982, at the height of anti-Japanese sentiments arising from massive layoffs in the auto industry, a Chinese-American named Vincent Chin was murdered in Detroit by two white autoworkers. Chin's killers, however, got off with a $3,000 fine and 3 years probation, but no jail time. Outraged by this injustice, Asian Americans around the country united for the first time across ethnic and socioeconomic lines to form a pan-Asian identity and civil rights movement.

Among its significant outcomes, the movement led to the historic broadening of federal civil rights protection to include all people in America regardless of immigrant status or ethnicity.

Vincent Who? explores this important legacy through interviews with the key players at the time as well as a whole new generation of activists whose lives were impacted by Vincent Chin. It also looks at the case in relation to the larger narrative of Asian American history, in such events as Chinese Exclusion, Japanese American Internment in WWII, the 1992 L.A. Riots, anti-Asian hate crimes, and post-9/11 racial profiling.

Ultimately, Vincent Who? asks how far Asian Americans have come since the case and how far they have yet to go.

For in spite of Vincent Chin’s monumental significance in both the Asian American experience and the civil rights history of America, the vast majority of people today (including most Asian Americans) have little or no knowledge of him.

By sparking interest in Vincent Chin with this film, we hope to contribute toward the day when "Vincent Chin" becomes a familiar name not only among Asian Americans, but all Americans. We believe that the Vincent Chin case and the resulting Asian American civil rights movement should assume an important place in this country’s history.