Civil rights & activism / Press & broadcasting
Helen Zia
born 1952 · journalist, author, activist
Chinese American journalist who worked in Detroit's auto plants and, after Vincent Chin's killing in 1982, co-founded American Citizens for Justice and helped build the Asian American civil rights movement.
- Born
Newark, New Jersey- Detroit years
- late 1970s–1980s
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Zia was born in Newark in 1952 to immigrants from Shanghai, graduated with Princeton's first class of women and started medical school at Tufts before leaving in 1976. She moved to Detroit, where she worked as a construction laborer, an autoworker and a community organizer, and there found her calling as a journalist. When Vincent Chin was beaten to death in 1982 and his killers got probation, Detroit had no organized Asian American movement; Zia's reporting and organizing helped create one. She co-founded American Citizens for Justice, the Detroit-based group that pressed for federal civil rights charges, and served as its president in 1983. The case made her a national voice on hate crimes and media bias, and she testified before the US Commission on Civil Rights. She went on to become a leading author on Asian American history, with books including Asian American Dreams and Last Boat Out of Shanghai, and an advocate for women's and LGBTQ rights.
Highlights
- Worked as an autoworker and organizer in Detroit
- Co-founded American Citizens for Justice after Vincent Chin's killing
- President of American Citizens for Justice, 1983
- Author of Asian American Dreams (2000) and Last Boat Out of Shanghai (2019)