This much is certain.

On 19 June 1982, on the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan, an individual named Vincent Chin--twenty-seven years old, of Chinese ancestry, an American citizen, from a working-class background, engaged to be married the following week--went out with a few friends for a bachelor party to celebrate his upcoming wedding. At a strip club, they encountered two other gentlemen, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, father and stepson, similarly out enjoying the evening.

There was an altercation at the bar, the Fancy Pants Lounge. Then time elapsed before another encounter occurred between these strangers. After the sun had set on Woodward Avenue, the major thoroughfare of the Motor City, they met once again.

And this is what happened: Ebens swung the baseball bat while Nitz held Chin down, and the bridegroom ended up with his head literally split open. Blood, spinal fluid, and cerebral matter pooled on the pavement under his body. Before collapsing into a coma, he uttered his last words, "It's not fair."

Four days later, Chin died.

In state court, Ebens and Nitz faced criminal charges. Represented by counsel, sobered up, dressed in business suits, they accepted a plea bargain.

At the hearing, the prosecutors failed to show up. The judge, Charles Kaufman, imposed on each man the sentence of three years' probation and a $3,000 fine, plus court costs.

Everything else is in doubt.

Eventually there would transpire two federal prosecutions, two civil lawsuits, a national protest movement, and more attention than had ever been paid to any single incident involving an Asian American. According to witnesses, Ebens and Nitz had used racial slurs to refer to Chin, they had offered a bystander $20 to help them find "the Chinaman," and they had said, "It's because of you little motherf****ers, we're out of work." That comment was made at a time when the nation was experiencing double-digit unemployment and equally high inflation and in place that had prospered because of "the Big Three"--Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler, the domestic automobile manufacturers--until imported cars became popular. While Japan was feared as the Land of the Rising Sun taking economic vengeance for its World War II defeat, to Ebens and Nitz, the implication was that Chin stood for Tokyo and Toyota.

Whether it was a bar brawl, a hate crime, or perhaps both, the context, causes, and consequences of the Vincent Chin case have been the subject of unceasing controversy. Throughout, Ebens and Nitz have insisted they are not bigots; they said Chin inexplicably decided to accost them, and Ebens "just snapped." By their understanding, the community had drummed up the charge of racism and thereby wronged them. The first federal jury convicted Ebens and acquitted Nitz; the appeals court, rejecting the claim that "Orientals" were not protected by civil rights statutes nonetheless reversed the judgment; the second jury acquitted Ebens, too.

The Asian American movement began with the Vincent Chin case. To be sure, Asian Americans existed before then, and they were politically active. But it...