What the New Labor Movement Can Learn From the Death of Vincent Chin

“It’s because of you we’re out of work!” That was the accusation shouted by the two laid-off, white workers of Detroit’s dissipating auto industry, before they proceeded to beat to death a young, Chinese American man by the name of Vincent Chin – who they had mistaken as Japanese –with a baseball bat.   

This year marks the 32nd anniversary of Vincent Chin’s death.  The fact that the hate crime involved racialized violence among working-class men reminds me that we have work to do in building cross-cultural/racial working-class solidarity and representative institutional leadership in our movement for both economic and racial justice.

On the Left, organization is integral to social movements and progressive reforms.  But organization, without a multicultural lens and leadership, is bound to flounder – if not dissolve – especially in an increasingly racially, ethnically, and sexually diverse society.

On June 12th, Professor Kent Wong of the UCLA Labor Center came to the Santa Clara Valley Labor Center, for Working Partnerships USA’s Social Innovators Speaker Series event and echoed the importance of multiculturalism and internationalism.  He spoke on the concept of the New Labor Movement, which he proclaims must be inclusive of a new working class in the changing demographics and nature of the workforce and work itself.

He explored the notion of transcending national boundaries, just as corporations have expanded across borders, in order to evolve and adapt our workers’ movement in today’s changing global economy.  The U.S. Labor Movement, ever since its emergence during the industrial period, has championed workers’ rights and safe workplaces domestically.  However, it has often times deviated from the internationalism that orthodox Communists and Leftists historically advocated.  In these times, as Kent Wong emphasized, we must move beyond the vestige of Cold War politics, dogmatic nationalism/patriotism, and advance our thinking and practice across lines of difference, in order for today’s working class to adapt and overcome exploitation.

As Professor Frank Wu wrote in a New York Times article reflecting on Chin’s death, “social change (can arise) from tragic violence.”  And, indeed it did, as Asian Americans across the nation mobilized across lines of ethnicity addressing pan-Asian American civil rights.  They faced down the wave of anti-Asian sentiment permeating the media that propagated racial divisions among the working class – which historically have been a part of a “divide and conquer” strategy for the owning class to maintain their power and control over workers.

Unfortunately despite the concerted, organized efforts to address racial inequities, the men who murdered Vincent Chin ended up not spending a day in jail for their crime. This historical fact continues to haunt Asian American communities and act as a driving force for pan-ethnic solidarity for Asian Americans fighting for racial justice.

To reflect on this “tragic violence,” in light of redefining our movement, is to recognize that racial justice in the U.S. cannot be divorced from workers’ struggle both domestically and internationally.  Had the U.S. Labor Movement in the early ‘80s adopted an internationalist, multiculturalist framework, perhaps the laid-off white working-class men would have pinpointed the cause of their being laid off not on the nation of Japan or Japanese people but rather those who ultimately make the decisions – often driven by profit logic – on the movement of capital.

While the 1%  have power over the direction of multi-national corporations, we, as a movement, have power as a diverse class – as the majority – to not only address the perils of capital and necessity for equity in the workplace and society, but also the importance of movement building alongside all marginalized people to combat all forms of oppression.

Son Chau is the Development Associate for Working Partnerships USA and a social justice advocate.

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