Memorial for Yong Xin Huang
Title
Memorial for Yong Xin Huang
Description
This photo is of a rally and memorial for Yong Xin Huang in Confucius Plaza in Manhattan's Chinatown. A red banner reading "CAAAV Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence" and a white banner reading "Parents Against Police Brutality" hang on the fence behind demonstrators. The gathered mourners hold cardboard tombstones bearing the names and photos of Asian Americans killed by police and/or gun violence. Some gravestones also show the victim's age and where they were killed. Huang's mother and sisters stand near the front. They hold a sign above Huang's tombstone reading "died of racism." A participant addresses the gathering through a megaphone.
Sixteen-year old Yong Xin Huang was shot and killed by NYPD officer Steven Mizrahi on March 24, 1995 while he was playing in a friend’s backyard in Sheepshead Bay. Mizrahi was put on paid leave and returned to work two weeks later. On May 16, 1995, the Brooklyn D.A. failed to convict Mizrahi; he would not stand trial. [1] For Yong Xin’s family and the CAAAV community, this was emblematic of a state and justice system that criminalized youth of color just for existing. [2]
On July 16th, 1995, the day before what would have been Yong Xin’s seventeenth birthday, CAAAV organized a day of action and remembrance. The day started with services for Yong Xin at PS 124 and a procession to Columbus Park, followed by a speak out and memorial in Confucius Plaza, Chinatown. Leaders from Asian, African American and Latino communities “denounced police brutality and inaction from District Attorneys.” [3] The memorial centered “remembrance as an act of resistance in the face of the state’s deliberate forgetting.” [4]
True to its founding ethos of “panethnic, multiracial and intersectional” action [5], CAAAV would continue to fight against police brutality and for racial justice in the case of Yong Xin as well as across ethnic and racial lines. The Huang family “found their closest allies in other communities of color.” [6] Direct actions that "confronted [Mayor] Giuliani’s revanchist regime and aimed to build the power and unity of those who were criminalized” [7] would continue throughout the 90s and beyond. [8]
[1] Vivian Truong, "From State-Sanctioned Removal to the Right to the City: The Policing of Asian Immigrants in Southern Brooklyn, 1987–1995." Journal of Asian American Studies 23, no. 1 (2020): 61-92
[2] Truong, 74.
[3] “Voice Fall 1995,” CAAAV Digital Archive, accessed October 23, 2024, https://archives.caaav.org/items/show/2131.
[4] Truong, 81.
[5] Truong, 86.
[6] Truong, 75.
[7] Truong, 74.
[8] “Voice Winter 1996.” CAAAV Digital Archive, accessed October 23, 2024, https://archives.caaav.org/items/show/2132.
Sixteen-year old Yong Xin Huang was shot and killed by NYPD officer Steven Mizrahi on March 24, 1995 while he was playing in a friend’s backyard in Sheepshead Bay. Mizrahi was put on paid leave and returned to work two weeks later. On May 16, 1995, the Brooklyn D.A. failed to convict Mizrahi; he would not stand trial. [1] For Yong Xin’s family and the CAAAV community, this was emblematic of a state and justice system that criminalized youth of color just for existing. [2]
On July 16th, 1995, the day before what would have been Yong Xin’s seventeenth birthday, CAAAV organized a day of action and remembrance. The day started with services for Yong Xin at PS 124 and a procession to Columbus Park, followed by a speak out and memorial in Confucius Plaza, Chinatown. Leaders from Asian, African American and Latino communities “denounced police brutality and inaction from District Attorneys.” [3] The memorial centered “remembrance as an act of resistance in the face of the state’s deliberate forgetting.” [4]
True to its founding ethos of “panethnic, multiracial and intersectional” action [5], CAAAV would continue to fight against police brutality and for racial justice in the case of Yong Xin as well as across ethnic and racial lines. The Huang family “found their closest allies in other communities of color.” [6] Direct actions that "confronted [Mayor] Giuliani’s revanchist regime and aimed to build the power and unity of those who were criminalized” [7] would continue throughout the 90s and beyond. [8]
[1] Vivian Truong, "From State-Sanctioned Removal to the Right to the City: The Policing of Asian Immigrants in Southern Brooklyn, 1987–1995." Journal of Asian American Studies 23, no. 1 (2020): 61-92
[2] Truong, 74.
[3] “Voice Fall 1995,” CAAAV Digital Archive, accessed October 23, 2024, https://archives.caaav.org/items/show/2131.
[4] Truong, 81.
[5] Truong, 86.
[6] Truong, 75.
[7] Truong, 74.
[8] “Voice Winter 1996.” CAAAV Digital Archive, accessed October 23, 2024, https://archives.caaav.org/items/show/2132.
Date
July 16, 1995
Contributor
Digitized by Van Anh Tran
Cataloged by Vivian Lanini
Cataloged by Vivian Lanini
Rights
Copyright is held by CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities.
Format
Photograph
Identifier
Photo227
Files
Citation
“Memorial for Yong Xin Huang,” CAAAV Digital Archive, accessed November 6, 2024, https://archives.caaav.org/items/show/2462.