Race & Racism:1970 and Beyond

Fuel to the Racist Fire

 

In the eyes of many Americans, Asians and Arabs will perpetually be foreign to the United States. Asians have been at the receiving end of racism and violent hate crimes for many years, yet more so in the past39 years. It has been said several times and in many ways that Americans are truly not embracing to change and something different, especially when it comes to people of different backgrounds.

These types of attitude results in hate crimes like that of Vincent Chin. Chin, a Chinese  American, was a groom to be out with his friends before his upcoming wedding. The year was 1982 and the Japanese car industry was booming. Many people were currently buying Japanese cars with greater quality and less expensive than American cars. This resulted in many job losses for American car dealers; the Japanese people were to blame. On the night of June 19, 1982, Chin learned his fate. Two white men by the names of Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz worked in the auto industry. Once confronted by the white men Chin was called a “Jap,” chased out of the bar he was in and then captured and fatally beaten with a baseball bat. There was no need for argument; Ebens and Nitz were guilty of the crime. However, they were only convicted of minor offenses, none of them including murder; Neither of the men served a day in jail either. This hateful crime aroused Asian Americans across the country. It became clear to Asians that they were a target of hate crimes and discrimination in the United States. “The fact that Chin was Chinese, not Japanese, did not keep him from being killed. And the thought that a judge found it understandable, perhaps even reasonable, that Nitz ad Ebens would kill him, cast a chill though he hearts of Asian Americans everywhere” (Spickard, 401). 

Perhaps the most shocking case of discrimination and abuse directed towards Asian Americans was the case of Wen Ho Lee, which began in1996. Lee, and Taiwanese, immigrated to the United States in the 1960s to earn his PhD from Texas A&M. Lee was not an illegal alien gaining his citizenship and obtaining a job after earning his degree. Working at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lee worked in fluid dynamics; he later worked as a scientist for the laboratory and specifically traveling and meeting with other scientists to gather and exchange data. However, in the early 90s the Los Alamos Labs were under a large magnifying glass for their relaxed security of their findings. “Critics complained that other countries—China among them—were making weapons advances that they could only have made if they had stolen secrets from Los Alamos” (Spickard, 424). Soon, the FBI was involved in this case and their first and chief suspect was in fact Lee. Many speculate that he was the premier suspect because of his race or the idea that he met other scientists from Taiwan and China while traveling and exchanging data. Whatever the motives, Lee was fired from Los Alamos and in November 1999 there was a 59 count indictment against Lee “”for copying bob secrets with intent to injure the United States and to aid a foreign country” (Spickard, 425). A month later in December, Lee was arrested and placed in solitary confinement for 278 days; Lee could have been in prison for the rest of his life. When investigated further Lee had done no damage. Lee took his work home with him, put the files onto his home computer, and downloaded them; many of his colleagues had done the same. When Lee downloaded the files onto his computer they were not classified, yet they were made classified as a part of his prosecution. The nuclear secrets he had shared and exchanged with China could also be found in various articles and accessible to many. The FBI continued to lie to Lee while questioning him, in the courtroom and to the press and media. After this chaos continued for nine months the government drop all of the charges held on Lee with the exception of one count of mishandling classified information. Lee pled guilty in return for the time he previously served in solitary confinement.

 What was the purpose of putting Lee in solitary confinement? What evidence the government have in the first place to point their fingers at Lee? Los Alamos and the government racially profiled Lee and left him to pick up the pieces after all was said and done. Not only did the laboratory racially profile Lee the federal government did as well. In all aspects of the nation whether it is in the corporate world or the government, racial profiling and racism fuel people’s decisions everyday, and in return people of different ethnicities, in this case Asian Americans, are constantly questioning whether a negative decision was fueled by their ethnicity. 

Citation

Toyshima, Tak. "Secret Asian Man." Cartoon. ImDiversity. 13 May 2009 <http://www.imdiversity.com/villages/Asian/Secret_Asian_Man/strips/sam_vincent_chin_0607.asp>.