was an adopted son of immigrants from China in metro Detroit.

The case of Vincent Chin reverberates today amid renewed concern about hate crimes and anti-immigrant sentiment, say Asian-American attorneys in metro Detroit. They point to the shooting death in Kansas in February of an Indian-American man, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, by a suspect who yelled, "Get out of my country" and asked if he was a legal immigrant before shooting him and another Indian American. Federal prosecutors have filed hate crime charges in the case.

In Michigan, there was an upswing in hate crimes against minorities after the November election, according to state officials. And Michigan had the highest number of hate crimes post-election in the Midwest, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

More: Michigan had highest number of bias crimesin Midwest post-election

"History seems to be repeating itself," said James Shimoura, a Sylvan Lake attorney of Japanese descent who was active in organizing after the Chin case in the 1980s. "Some always try to find scapegoats for social and economic ills. The target changes, but same issue."

The June 1982 incident started after an attacker yelled at Chin: "It's because of you little (expletives) that we're out of work!" and anti-Asian racial slurs denigrating Chinese and Japanese people. In 1982, metro Detroit was going through a recession with many autoworkers out of work as anti-Asian racism, in particular against Japan, began to rise. Auto executives, union leaders and politicians in Michigan made anti-Japanese remarks, creating a climate that made many Asian Americans uneasy.

"Anyone who looked Japanese in the early