Highland Park is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. An enclave of Detroit, Highland Park is located roughly 6 miles (9.7 km) north of downtown Detroit, and is surrounded by Detroit on most sides. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 8,977.
Vincent Jen Chin was an American draftsman of Chinese descent who was killed in a racially motivated assault by two white men, Chrysler plant supervisor Ronald Ebens and his stepson, laid-off autoworker Michael Nitz. Ebens and Nitz assailed Chin following a brawl that took place at a strip club in Highland Park, Michigan, where Chin had been celebrating his bachelor party with friends in advance of his upcoming wedding. Against the backdrop of high anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States at the time – known as "Japan bashing" – they had assumed that Chin was Japanese, and a witness described them using anti-Asian racial slurs as they attacked him, ultimately beating him to death.
Frank Chin is an American author and playwright. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Asian-American theatre.
Helen Zia is a Chinese American journalist and activist for Asian American and LGBTQ rights. After Vincent Chin's murder, Zia helped found American Citizens for Justice, which successfully lobbied for a federal trial. She is considered a key figure in the Asian American movement. The political actions of American Citizens for Justice helped coalesce the growing Asian-American activism in the Midwest. After this incident, Zia remained an outspoken advocate and activist for a wide range of causes, from women's rights to gay rights. Furthermore, she testified at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on the racial impact of the news media. Zia is also an accomplished author and has published multiple books about Asian American histories and experiences.
Ronald Madis Ebens is an American convicted killer. Ebens, with his stepson Michael Nitz as an accomplice, killed Vincent Chin, a Chinese American man, on June 19, 1982. This led to a federal indictment for violating Chin's civil rights, but only after public outrage at the probationary sentence and small fine imposed by Michigan Third Circuit Court Judge Charles Kaufman. Ebens was found guilty on one count of violating Chin's civil rights and was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but the conviction was overturned on appeal.
Harvey Kurek Ovshinsky is an American writer, story consultant, media producer, and teacher, and has been described as "one of this country’s finest storytellers" by the Detroit News. The Metro Times called Ovshinsky's career chronicling life in Detroit during the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s "a colorful and fantastic voyage, at times brave and visionary," spanning the universe of print, broadcast television and radio, and digital storytelling.
Frank H. Wu is an American law professor and author currently serving as the president of Queens College, City University of New York. He served as the William L. Prosser Distinguished Professor at UC Hastings. Wu was also the first Asian American to serve in that position. In November 2015, he announced he would return to teaching.
Shawn K. Wong is a Chinese American author and scholar. He has served as the Professor of English, Director of the University Honors Program (2003–06), Chair of the Department of English (1997–2002), and Director of the Creative Writing Program (1995–97) at the University of Washington, where he has been on the faculty since 1984 and teaches courses covering critical theory, Asian American studies, which he is considered a pioneer in, and fiction writing. Wong received his undergraduate degree in English at the University of California Berkeley (1971) and a master's degree in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University (1974).
Andrea Kalin is an American independent filmmaker, writer, producer, and director. She is also the principal and founder of Spark Media and founder and executive director of Stone Soup Productions, a 501(c)(3) non-profit foundation.
Renee Tajima-Peña is an American filmmaker whose work focuses on immigrant communities, race, gender and social justice. Her directing and producing credits include the documentaries Who Killed Vincent Chin?, No Más Bebés, My America...or Honk if You Love Buddha, Calavera Highway, Skate Manzanar, Labor Women and the 5-part docuseries Asian Americans.
Gran Torino is a 2008 American drama film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood, who also starred in the film. This was Eastwood's first starring role since 2004's Million Dollar Baby. The film features a large Hmong American cast, as well as one of Eastwood's younger sons, Scott. Eastwood's oldest son of record, Kyle, composed the film's score with Michael Stevens, while Jamie Cullum and Clint Eastwood provide the theme song. Set in Highland Park, Michigan, the story follows Walt Kowalski, a recently widowed Korean War veteran alienated from his family and angry at the world whose young neighbor, Thao Vang Lor, is pressured by his cousin into trying to steal Walt's prized 1972 Ford Torino for his initiation into a gang - Walt thwarts the theft and subsequently develops a relationship with the boy and his family.
Who Killed Vincent Chin? is a 1987 American documentary film produced and directed by Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Peña that recounts the murder of Vincent Chin. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It was later broadcast as part of the PBS series POV.
The Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) was founded in 1980. The San Francisco–based organization, formerly known as the National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA), has grown into the largest organization dedicated to the advancement of Asian Americans in independent media, specifically the areas of television and filmmaking.
Camerado is a commercial film, video and multimedia production group that produces independent, multicultural-themed films, videos, and media events with a prosocial agenda.
Shelton Johnson is a park ranger with the U.S. National Park Service, and works in Yosemite National Park. As of 2023 he had worked in Yosemite for 30 years of his 37-year career.
In 2002, there were 6,413 people of Japanese origin, including Japanese citizens and Japanese Americans, in the Wayne-Oakland-Macomb tri-county area in Metro Detroit, making them the fifth-largest Asian ethnic group there. In that year, within an area stretching from Sterling Heights to Canton Township in the shape of a crescent, most of the ethnic Japanese lived in the center. In 2002, the largest populations of ethnic Japanese people were located in Novi and West Bloomfield Township. In April 2013, the largest Japanese national population in the State of Michigan was in Novi, with 2,666 Japanese residents. West Bloomfield had the third-largest Japanese population and Farmington Hills had the fourth largest Japanese population.
As of 2002, ethnic Chinese and Chinese American people comprise the second-largest Asian-origin ethnic group in the Wayne–Macomb–Oakland tri-county area in Metro Detroit. As of that year there were 16,829 ethnic Chinese, concentrated mainly in Troy, Rochester Hills, and Canton Township. As of 2012, Madison Heights also hosts a significant Chinese community.
Young Corky Lee was a Chinese-American activist, community organizer, photographer, journalist, and the self-proclaimed unofficial Asian American Photographer Laureate. He called himself an "ABC from NYC ... wielding a camera to slay injustices against APAs." His work chronicled and explored the diversity and nuances of Asian American culture often ignored and overlooked by mainstream media, striving to make Asian American history a part of American history.
Christine Choy is a Chinese-American filmmaker. She is known for codirecting Who Killed Vincent Chin?, a 1988 film based on the murder of Vincent Jen Chin.
Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is an American writer and educator based in Michigan and Hawai‘i.
