(beep) - [Reporter] Just ahead on one Detroit, the city of Detroit announces plans to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Vincent Chin's murder, a hate crime that ignited the modern Asian American Civil Rights Movement.

Plus it's Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

We'll kick off a series of conversations with members of Metro Detroit's Asian American community.

Also ahead, we'll hear from the African American developers breathing new life into Detroit's former Fisher Body Plant No.

21.

And renowned musician Chucho Valez talks about his role as artist in residence for this year's Detroit Jazz Festival.

It's all coming up next on One Detroit.

- [Reporter] From Delta faucets to bear paint, Masco corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco serving Michigan communities since 1929.

- [Reporter] Support for this program is provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

The Kresge Foundation - [Reporter] The DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit Public TV among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan focused giving.

We support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Visit DTEFoundation.com to learn more.

- [Reporter] Nissan Foundation and viewers like you.

(upbeat music) - [Reporter] Just ahead on this week's One Detroit.

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage month.

We'll share an emotional story about life love and family from a member of Southeast Michigan's AAPI community.

Also coming up two African American developers are leading the redevelopment plans for the former Fisher Body Plant No.

21 in Detroit.

American black journal talks with the two men about the massive project.

Plus Grammy award-winning Cuban pianist Chucho Valdez sits down with WRCJ's Linda Yohn to talk about performing at this year's Detroit Jazz Festival.

But first up, next month marks the 40th anniversary of the murder of Vincent Chin.

An Asian American killed in Highland Park by two white men who blamed the Japanese for a downturn in the US economy.

One Detroit senior producer Bill Kubota has been working on a series of reports about the racially motivated murder of Vincent Chin and how it sparked the modern Asian American civil rights movement.

He has the story on the city's upcoming remembrance of Chin.

(upbeat music) - [Reporter] Detroit CASAB just south of Mac MLK, where Chinatown used to be.

(laughing) - Detroit 10.

- [Reporter] This is the official announcement of the Vincent Chin 40th remembrance and rededication, activists that help bring the case to light have gathered again, four days of events are scheduled in June that will look at that history - With nationwide attention on Asian American hate incidents.

We are reminded of Vincent Chin's brutal 1982 murder and miscarriage of justice death followed.

We cannot talk about hate crimes and senseless killings today without talking about Vincent Chin - In 1982, the horrific baseball bat, killing of Vincent Chin on the Eve of his bachelor party and the miscarriage of justice that followed and allowed his two white killers to be freed without spending a single night in jail because the judge then said, these are not the kind of men you send to jail in a city like Detroit.

That was the springboard for the modern Asian American Civil Rights Movement.

- [Reporter] Vincent Chin.

- [Reporter] Vincent Chin's, mother Lilly Chin fought for justice with the help of activists Roland Wong Helen Zeya and Jim Shamara.

Back in the eighties Detroit was mired in a recession in part because auto production was down as Japanese imports had taken old.

- [Reporter] One out of every five cars being sold in this country was built in Japan while only one car in a thousand being sold in Japan was built in the USA.

- Some Detroiters expressed their anger at the imports with Vincent Chin while that anger and violence included a person too - It truly helped build an American Civil Rights Movement that was multiracial, multicultural, united for equal justice and human dignity.

And Detroit was its epicenter.

- [Narrator] Part of this history has been kept alive thanks to WTVS Detroit Public Television which worked with filmmakers, Christine Choy and Renee Tajima to make the 1987 documentary, 'Who killed Vincent Chin', featured in the upcoming June events and airing again nationally on PBS.

- And the first I heard of it and I said, this can't be true.

And I got deeply interested study the case saying how could this happen in my hometown.

- [Narrator] Detroit mayor, Mike Duggan got his law degree in 1983 and went to work for Wayne county, by the year 2000 he was running the Wayne county prosecutor's office.

- The first thing I said to them is, explain to me how the Vincent Chin case could have happened.

And I heard the kind of defensive language you heard.

You gotta understand.

We've got 300 prosecutors, we've got 40,000 felonies a year.

There are place you can't keep track of everything.

And I said, let me ask you all this.

If it had been a 27 year old white suburbanite who had been beaten to death with a bat by two Asian men.

Do any of you here think, you would've not have bothered to go to the hearing and he would've gotten probation.

And it was met with dead silence.

And I said I want to have a different standard in this office.

I wanna make sure that we are charging people.

We don't charge somebody more or less because of the color of their skin.

And we don't charge somebody more or less because of the color of the skin of the victim.

And we're gonna put processes in place where we're gonna measure our charging patterns our plea patterns, our sentencing patterns, because it's the responsibility of the leadership of the office to make sure that the implicit bias that each of us has as an individual doesn't get translated into the criminal justice system.

- You know, we are also in this time right now where we are there are so many forces at play that are trying to whitewash the way that we teach our history.

And I think that the fact that we've got this 40th anniversary this year of the killing of Vincent Chin is yet another reminder of how important it is that we are teaching every child, the history and the true history and the whole history about what happens in our country 'cause that is the only way that we are going to get better and that we are going to be able to achieve the type of America that my parents came here believing in.

- May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

A time to celebrate the contributions of the Asian American community and to raise awareness about the challenges they face.

Detroit public television and WDET radio are highlighting the stories of Asian Americans with a series of conversations between family and friends about life here in Southeast Michigan.

Here's one of these exchanges between partners Dan Moan and Joe Hunter.

(upbeat music) - You said that you were adopted how much did you know about your Filipino history or background when you got over here?

Like what was that like for you?

- Well, when I was born, I was in an orphanage up until about, I was eight months old.

Then I came over here to the United States.

And both me and my sister are both adoptees we're not biologically related.

My mom is half Filipino and half Caucasian.

And it turns out back in 1988, at least at that time from the way I was told, every country adopts differently.

There's different policies that are in place.

So because my mom has Filipino blood they allowed me to be adopted by her and my dad.

We grew up in our household learning about our heritage and culture through what we call Filipino day.

And Filipino day was a little bit more specifically about our adoption not so much about the culture per se of the Philippines but more understanding about what it means to be an adoptee.

What does it mean to be a transnational adoptee being born in one country, coming over here and also what it means to be a transcultural adoptee, meaning me and my sister are both Filipino ethnically, but culturally we we're so far removed from our heritage.

Like everything that we learned, we have to learn on our own.

- I remember like when we were first dating there was a challenge because you held a lot of things close to the chest.

And one of them that I remember vividly was there was this collection of things related to your adoptive story.

- This is the actual... - I can kind of see the hurt and the pain and the trauma.

What was going through your mind when you know that first day when you showed me that?

- Yeah, I remember that day.

So both my sister and I have adoption papers and it gives you the entire history about the family and all about like our legal papers showing our nationalization and everything.

So one of the things that was in there was a little album.

- Look at this face.

- Oh my God.

And in the album, it has my baby photos.

It has like all that kind of information from the orphanage and somebody handwritten the entire backstory of my birth mother.

So they were saying like, she was born here.

She had this child, all this other stuff, growing up was always that little piece of there's something inside of you.

There's a little story about you Dan, that you may not fully comprehend now, but later in life is probably gonna hit you hard.

And over the years, it just build and build in that passion and drive, took off after middle school.

And then by high school and into college, talk about cultural and diversity like Filipino became like almost an epicenter for me because it became something that is close to me on a more intimate level that is very difficult to explain - [Reporter] For more on the AAPI stories go to OneDetroitpbs.org.

Plans are underway to transform a long abandoned Detroit auto plant into housing and retail space.

The Old Fisher Body Plant No.

21 has sat empty for nearly 30 years, but now a team led by two African American developers is planning to convert the 600,000 square foot space into more than 400 apartments.

Bridge Detroit's Orlando Bailey talked with developers Richard Hosey and Gregory Jackson on American Black Journal.

(upbeat music) - I'm really interested on learning how the two of you decided to come together and partner to take on such a massive project.

- So it was particularly interesting because we just struck up a conversation on Memorial Day I think it was 2018.

And Greg talked about us partner together.

I told him I love to if you know I felt like it was a great honor.

And we tried to think of, started talking about projects that interested us.

And I said the Fisher Body.

And he said, well, I was thinking about Fisher Body.

We had both been independently riding past the building thinking about what it could become.

And it went straight from there.

We went right into to talking about how to make it work and figuring out the numbers on it.

And so we just happened to be in the same place for Memorial Day.

- Waow, that's pretty amazing.

Hey, we had a Memorial Day gathering.

Hey, let's figure out how to dream about, and I don't even know if you guys knew this, the biggest development project in for black developer in Detroit history with a price tag of 130 million dollars, 130 million dollars.

So how is the performance and the financing coming together for this Greg?

- It's coming together good.

We're pretty much done.

We don't have a complete bow on it.

We don't have every, I dotted every T cross, but we're very very optimistic.

And in the next 90 to 120 days, we'll have all of that done.

So we're feeling very very good about everything.

- Awesome.

Richard, there are still some approvals, of course that are needed to move forward.

The city has to actually sell the building and council.

There are some council approvals and things some additional hurdles that you guys have to get through.

How confident are you in the building sale actually happening and all the approvals going through?

How much are they selling the building for it?

If I can try to get the price tag on it.

- So it still has to be laid out with, the evaluation of the building and his current condition and the surrounding land.

And so we're locking that number in the press conference, the mayor said, it'd be a million or below.

And so because of the condition of the building of course.

So, that that'll be locked in.

We feel very confident that, after conversations with city council but that they'll see the impact and feel comfortable approving the sale.

But the first step is going out to the community and getting their buy-in and approval and understanding the, explaining the impacts of the project, the positives hearing their concerns about any potential negative impacts the project and how do we offset those?

So before we get to the city council approvals, we go to the community and get all their make sure they're heard and come to the community benefits group.

- I mean, it's really it is really cool to hear developers talking about the community engagement strategy.

I think a project of this size and magnitude actually triggers that community benefits agreements ordinance that was enacted a few years ago.

So what does that process look like for you all?

I mean are you guys beginning that now the neighborhood advisory council is it being set up and you know what sorts of things are you you looking to hear from the community to be implemented for the, in this project?

- Yeah, well that process is starting right now.

We expect to have it completed.

Hopefully by the time we get to June maybe somewhere in there there's eight to 10 meetings that are associated with that.

What we, I'm not sure what we expect to hear from the community.

What's interesting about this community is that it's largely a business industrial community.

Now, there's a greater census track I believe that we reach out to the north which is called the North end, which used to be very dense which is very sparse right now.

So there is some housing attached to that.

I'm not sure exactly what we will hear from the community as a whole.

Our expectation would be that the community would be excited about getting rid of a building that has been part of Detroit' ruined porn for so long that the community would be excited about reactivating a neighborhood and bringing housing into it.

That the community would be in the city as a whole would be excited about the prospect of not spending somewhere between our estimates are 10 to 25 million dollars to have to have to tear down a structure which would come out of the city budget.

And instead of spending that money out of the city budget now that money can be allocated toward other developments and community projects around the around the city.

Plus obviously taking a building that has not been on the city tax roles for many years and restoring it to the city tax role.

So we would hope that the community would feed into all those positive things and join us in celebrating this and getting it across the finish line.

- Yeah.

I don't think we can overstate how exciting it is to see two African American developers working on such a monumental project.

One of the things that right now is in the ethos is the rise of construction costs and the conversation around getting black on the Detroit based talent and contractors.

What is your purview and management strategy look like given those caveats Richard?

- So that's one of the things that Greg and Anika, myself and our partner, Kevin Alan, we always from the beginning, it felt very comfortable with.

We've always tried to use as bitty Detroit contractors we believe in their strength.

We believe in their expertise.

And we believe in speaking with them about any areas where it would become that would be a barrier to them being, on a project of any size and helping remove those barriers.

We found that to be a successful strategy from a business perspective and not just from a community or social perspective.

So when the solution to one problem is the solution to the other, then that's perfect.

And we were already doing that.

And that's what we'll do here.

- [Reporter] The Detroit Jazz Festival is expected to return to live in-person performances in downtown Detroit over the labor day weekend.

The lineup includes this year's artist in residence.

Chucho Valdez renowned in the world of Latin and Afro Cuban Jazz, WRCJ host Linda Yohn spoke with the award winning Cuban pianist band leader and composer.

(upbeat music) (piano playing) - Chucho, welcome back to Detroit.

And please give us your thoughts on the Detroit Havana connection.

- [Translator] My opinion is one of the most important festival in the world of jazz.

(speaking foreign language) I've been lucky enough to play before, but this time, as an artist in residence, it really a huge honor for me.

I will be able to present a lot of projects that I've been working on.

First of all the one called recreation is a suite in three parts.

And you describe the influences of the African music in the Caribbean in the United States, African and everything else.

(speaking foreign language) The second one is duet, with Diane Ribs one of my favorite singers, - Yolowano.

- [Translator] Yolowano, and the third one is gonna be with the Superqawtz.

Is my understanding that it's excellent relation between the festival between Havana and Detroit.

- Tell me what it means to be communicating through music internationally.

- [Translator] Music is universal language, and all musician that in this moment we are talking about jazz we are a big family.

Festival is the place to meet.

It's like our home in this moment.

And we exchange knowledge and we play together.

It's a wonderful thing for me.

- Tell us about the relationship of the piano in Cuban music to other instruments especially the drum.

- [Translator] Piano is a harmonic instrument, but at the same time, very rhythm.

The drum is an instrument of rhythm.

(speaking foreign language) When they both play together the piano just feel resting because the drum is helping the piano.

- You had a great group with drummers and other instruments including Paquito de Rivera with Irakere.

Tell us a little bit about the difference that Irakere made for the world.

- Irakere changed everything.

All the structures.

(speaking foreign language) I think it was the session, most important.

The one that place more influences in all the history of Cuba.

(speaking foreign language) That's the section more incredible that have just go through the Cuban music.

(speaking foreign language) And the most respected musician that even today we had a lot of elements of jazz to the Afro Cuba music.

(speaking foreign language) And we also introduced so many African percussion instruments that were not used before in the Cuban dance music.

- Yeah labata.

- Labata - Labata.

Beautiful.

- You know?

- Yeah, I do I do.

Jazz batados, beautiful recording and, Mirror Mirror.

You have won Grammy Awards for both of these.

And I hope people will re-listen to them.

What should we listen for in Jazz batadoz and Mirror Mirror with Chick Corea and Eliane Elias.

- First of all in the Chabata their language is totally different.

The vocabulary is totally different to what he has made before.

And the piano I used to just apart from the ceremony as an percussion instrument that was playing with the drums and it's totally different language.

Mirror mirror is one of the most beautiful experiences in all my life.

Eliane elias Brazilian music is incredible, but she also managed to just to deal with the African Cuban music, all the languages.

Ichicorea who by the way, is one of my heroes.

I felt very comfortable in the language among us.

- Give us some of your other dreams and jazz hopes for the world.

- I'm working on it.

Working on vocabulary language, Cuban Afro Cuban jazz, but with another way of expression and with a harmonic feeling totally different to the one that we have done so far I think it could be something different to everything that we have done before.

- Boy no.

Boy no.

Oh, Chocho gracias, thank you.

(piano playing) - [Reporter] Make sure you join us next Wednesday, May 11th at noon for our next future of work, virtual Town Hall co-hosted by One Detroit contributor Steven Henderson and Nolan Finley.

They'll discuss Michigan's future in the auto industry.

We hope you'll be part of this important conversation.

That will do it for this week's One Detroit.

Thanks for watching.

Make sure to come back from One Detroit arts and culture on Mondays at 7:30 p.m. Head to the one Detroit website for all the stories we're working on.

Follow us on social media and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

- [Narrator] From Delta faucets to bear paint Masco corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco serving Michigan communities since 1929.

- [Reporter] Support for this program is provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

The Kresge Foundation - [Reporter] The DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit Public TV among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan focused giving.

We support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Visit DTEFoundation.com to learn more.

- [Reporter] Nissan Foundation and viewers like you.

(upbeat music)