From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial That Galvanized the Asian American Movement

By Paula Yoo

Book Overview

America in 1982: Japanese car companies are on the rise and believed to be putting U.S. autoworkers out of their jobs. Anti-Asian American sentiment simmers, especially in Detroit. A bar fight turns fatal, leaving a Chinese American man, Vincent Chin, beaten to death at the hands of two white men, autoworker Ronald Ebens and his stepson, Michael Nitz.

Paula Yoo has crafted a searing examination of the killing and the trial and verdicts that followed. When Ebens and Nitz pled guilty to manslaughter and received only a $3,000 fine and three years' probation, the lenient sentence sparked outrage. The protests that followed led to a federal civil rights trial--the first involving a crime against an Asian American--and galvanized what came to be known as the Asian American movement.

Extensively researched from court transcripts, contemporary news accounts, and in-person interviews with key participants, From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry is a suspenseful, nuanced, and authoritative portrait of a pivotal moment in civil rights history, and a man who became a symbol against hatred and racism.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1324002875
• ISBN13: 9781324002871
• Release Date: April 2021
• Publisher: Norton Young Readers
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 2.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.1"
• Age Range: 14 to 18 years
• Grade Range: Grade 9 to Postsecondary