This week marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Vincent Chin, a 27-year-old Detroit man who was killed in an act of hate, but whose killing sparked Asian American communities to rise up for justice.
He was beaten to death by two white men who worked in the auto industry and, according to witnesses, were angry over what they perceived as the loss of American jobs to Japanese imports. He was attacked on June 19, 1982, and died four days later from his injuries.
His killers were fined $3,000 and sentenced to three years of probation. They never served time in prison.
The light sentencing galvanized not only Asian American communities, but solidarity from the Black community as well, particularly from Rev. Jesse Jackson, who came to San Francisco in the 1980s to join hands with coalitions advocating for Chin’s family.
Anti-Asian hate rose during the pandemic amid hateful rhetoric, including from former President Donald Trump, who stoked racist coronavirus fears of Asian Americans. At least 10,905 hate incidents against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders were recorded from March 19, 2020, through Dec. 31, 2021, according to the coalition Stop AAPI Hate.
That rising hate has also awakened Asian American voters in San Francisco, who cited increasing violence against their communities in the recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin this month.
Mabel Teng has been there through it all — pushing for recognition for Asian American communities in the wake of Chin’s death, to the present day, where she recently called for solidarity between the Black and Asian communities in the Chinese-language Sing Tao Daily newspaper.
In the 1980s, Teng served as co-chair of the Chinese Progressive Association, one of a bevy of Asian American organizations that rose up in the wake of the Civil Rights movement and played a pivotal advocacy role following Chin’s death.
Also in the 80s, Teng joined Jackson’s National Rainbow Coalition, which pushed nationally for more rights for ethnic groups who felt they were ignored by the policies of then-President Ronald Reagan.
Teng since had a storied San Francisco career, serving on the City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees in 1990, then later becoming the first Asian woman elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1994. Later, as San Francisco assessor-recorder, her office processed the first marriages of same-sex couples in City Hall. She now serves as the interim executive director of the Chinatown Media & Arts Collaborative.
In this wide-ranging interview with KQED’s Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, Teng describes her own social justice awakening, lessons learned from the coalitions built in the wake of Chin’s death, and how those lessons could heal divisions between the Asian American and Black communities today.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Where were you in your perception of activism and social justice before the Rainbow Coalition?
Mabel Teng: I think where I was in the 1980s, I was becoming an activist. My eyes were opened. I saw injustice. I saw discrimination. I came from it. Since my family immigrated to America. It’s been a journey of discrimination and exploitation and being treated as a second-class citizen. So the 80s was my kind of awakening that maybe I can be part of changing that reality.
Tell me your earliest memory of discrimination.
So I came from Hong Kong in 1970, or ‘71. I came with my mom and my sister, the three of us. We immigrated here and I went to live with my older sister in Ann Arbor, Michigan. My high school in my memory was mostly white, even though it was it wasn’t all white.
But I was made to feel like an alien because I looked like an immigrant and I couldn’t speak English. And I remember the first day in school, I was so prepared to make friends. So I learned, ‘How are you?’ and ‘My name is Mabel.’ I was greeted with ‘Ching chong Chinaman, never eat your vitamin.’ I didn’t know what it meant. So I said ‘Thank you.’ That live[S?] in my memory vividly. And I remember going to high school, I had to take all these classes in English. And my teacher knew I couldn’t speak English. And she would pick on me and have me stand up in class and answer questions that I couldn’t answer. And I felt very humiliated. People laughed.
What was the perception of yourself when you were young and what was the perception others gave you and how did those eventually reconcile?
Such a tough question. Before I came to America, I always have this kind of like magazine picture that America is sunshine, flowers, everybody has a dog and you have a house and everybody is happy. But when I came, it wasn’t the same, right? It looks like everybody else had a dog. Everybody else had sunshine. They’re happy. But for immigrants, we don’t have a dog. We don’t have a house. And life is not so happy. So my perception is, clearly, there are two Americas. One America for the white people and one America for the rest of us who are not white. That was very, very clear in my mind.
