Asian Americans are facing a surge of racist abuse and violence in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic—as they have often in the past. During the 1970s and 80s, they were targeted as the American auto industry shrunk and thousands of workers were laid off in the face of competition from Japanese automakers. From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry by Paula Yoo is the first book about a seminal moment from that period: the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin and the subsequent civil rights trial of his killer, the first federal civil rights trial of a crime against an Asian American. Chin’s killer was an autoworker, and the background to the killing and the trial was unemployment in the auto industry in Detroit, and the hostility toward Asians that accompanied it. It’s a story that’s repeating itself now.
