Helen Zia is an early proponent of what was once a novel idea: that Americans with roots in Asia could unite as Asian Americans to organize and, when necessary, agitate. In “Asian American Dreams,” her groundbreaking book that’s part memoir, part social history, she recounts a life-changing incident in high school when she discussed civil rights with two friends — …
DETROIT — Decades before Chinese immigrant Yao Pan Ma was attacked while collecting cans in New York and Thai American Vicha Ratanapakdee was fatally assaulted in San Francisco, Vincent Chin was beaten to death with a baseball bat in Detroit by two white men who never served jail time. Forty years later — and amid a rise in hate crimes …
