Tan grew up in New York City’s Chinatown and was raised by two immigrant parents.  Tan was raised to achieve the American Dream that all immigrant parents wish for their children. Only wanting the best for her, her parents stressed the importance of school, but due to their limited English proficiency, Tan’s parents were unable to provide much help in school except in math. This language barrier caused a feeling of distance that permeated her relationship with her parents for years to come. With no other guidance in other school subjects, Tan highlights her first-grade teacher who helped her to succeed in her early years of school. During a time when she felt that many people couldn’t help her, having one person be there meant the world to her. This impactful relationship made Tan realize that she someday wanted to help other young students feel that support too and wanted to become an educator. To Tan, being an educator was the perfect balance between making an impact in the world and having financial stability.

At the age of 13, while Tan watched a PBS documentary entitled “Becoming American: The Chinese Experience,” she stumbled upon a major development in her family history. Tan found out she was related to Vincent Chin, a Chinese American man who was murdered by two auto workers who mistook Vincent as Japanese. They beat Chin to death with a baseball bat, allegedly in response to anti-Japanese sentiment due to the rise of the Japanese auto market and an American automobile recession that led to the loss of American jobs. With a pained expression, Tan’s mother pointed at Chin’s photo on the screen, telling her in Chinese, “That’s your cousin.” before leaving the room. The subject was sensitive, not just for Tan’s mom, but for the family as a whole. The Vincent Chin Institute emphasizes that what happened all those years ago “ignited the modern Asian American civil rights movement and built a multiracial, multicultural coalition united for equal justice and human dignity which stands as a landmark of American history.” 

Curious about her family history, Tan asked many questions that were left unanswered due to not only the growing language barrier but also the pain surrounding Chin’s murder. Tan was overwhelmed by this information that couldn’t be explained right away. Annie felt that there was a clear disconnect in the family that was only heightened by Chin’s murder. Annie saw the potential to understand her family through Vincent Chin’s history.  It wasn’t until her college years that Annie learned more about her cousin’s case outside of her immediate family.

Still true to her childhood dream, Tan decided to pursue a job in education after graduating from Columbia University. Unable to find a job in New York City due to an elementary teaching job freeze, Tan moved to Chicago for the next five years as a special education teacher. It was there that she would be faced with the first professional hardship of her career. Tan’s contract was terminated after a year because, according to Tan, she “wasn’t doing enough.” Years later, Tan found that her failure wasn’t solely an individual teaching issue but also a structural one, as it was how schools and systems dealt with special education. Tan taught students from kindergarten to fourth grade in one classroom, an illegal violation of proper special education practices. Her experience was indeed formative, as Tan would later try to right wrongs in the special education system in Chicago. In the meantime, Tan worked on getting her master’s degree. Tan took the opportunity to visit Detroit, the home of Chin and some of Tan’s other relatives. After spending the majority of her life in the dark, it was time for Tan to get the full story of how she was related to Vincent Chin.

Upon her arrival in Detroit, Tan was informed that Lily Chin, Vincent Chin’s mother, was her great-aunt (Tan’s maternal grandmother’s sister). Tan saw that many of the relatives in Detroit came to America and supported Lily Chin, including Annie’s grandmother. Lily Chin fought for justice for her son but lost the case. Heartbroken, she moved to China and moved back to Michigan when she was later diagnosed with cancer. Through all these tragedies that pained her family, Tan saw something beautiful – the joy of collective care. Despite all the trials Lily Chin endured, her family was always there for her. Not only that, but the community of Detroit was also with Chin. Through her activism for Vincent, the heartache of his death, and her cancer diagnosis, Lily Chin’s family and community stuck with her, unafraid to speak out. The collective care that her relatives and community members demonstrated gave Tan the potential to understand her immediate family through Vincent Chin. While the initial aftermath of Chin’s death surrounded her family in pain, Tan saw that there was much love and strength shared within the family. While Tan was of a generation who did not know the impact of Vincent Chin’s death, as Tan and many of her cousins were born after Chin’s murder, Tan could view how Vincent Chin’s death brought family and community together to support each other. After finding the answers to a decades-old question and the opportunity to connect with her family on a deeper level, Tan was ready to return to Chicago to teach.

On her return to Chicago, Tan returned to teaching, where she saw that  Chicago Public Schools planned budget cuts that would lead to the termination of paraprofessional assistant positions. Tan became the co-chair of the Special Education Committee for the Chicago Teachers Union and formed a task force with stakeholders to deal with these problems. Tan took the lessons about the importance of collective care and community that she learned from her time in Detroit and applied them in her work within the Special Education Committee. After years of advocating with families, students, educators, and organizations, and after journalist investigations and lawsuits, CPS lost its license to oversee special education in Chicago, leaving the state of Illinois in control.  She learned from Helen Zia, a key spokesperson and organizer during the justice movement for Vincent Chin. Zia emphasized the importance of community in making change, especially with regard to Vincent Chin. “One of the reasons that I continue to talk about all this is because I don’t want the legacy of Vincent Chin to stay in the experience of racism and injustice, that’s not the only part of his legacy.” said Zia. “The major part is that our community did something about it. We came together.”

Around the same time Tan and the Special Education Committee of the Chicago Teachers Union won their victories, the Black Lives Matter movement also gained traction. While protests against police violence against Black people went on, the case of Peter Liang and Akai Gurley became especially relevant for Asian Americans. Peter Liang, the son of Chinese immigrants in New York City, was convicted of manslaughter in 2016 when, while Liang was on patrol, Liang’s bullet ricocheted off a wall and fatally wounded Akai Gurley. Tan was surprised to see more than 10,000 people, predominantly Chinese Americans, defend Liang in protests. Many even compared the case to Vincent Chin’s murder in the 1980s.

In response to this, Tan wrote an article for the Huffington Post titled, “Peter Liang Was Justly Convicted. He’s Not a Victim”. In the article, she urges the “Chinese American and Asian American communities to think long and hard about which side of history we are on and what it means to support Officer Liang. We must fight for the justice Akai Gurley and his family deserve, just as we fight for the justice Vincent Chin and Danny Chen deserve.” ² Tan’s article stirred controversy within the general public, but Tan was surprised to receive backlash from her own family. Tan’s family, who found the article after it was translated into Chinese, were frustrated that Tan had never consulted them about their views before publishing her article. They believed that she was creating a blanket statement about her family’s support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Despite her parents’ pleas to take the article down, Tan knew that she couldn’t even if she wanted to, not only because it was on the Internet, allowing it to live forever, but also because people had already reacted to her article. Tan explained why she didn’t inform her family: that she thought it would be too hard to explain or that they wouldn’t understand her point of view. Whatever her reasoning, Tan’s family’s reaction to this article showed a big gap in her family. This conflict made Tan realize that she never really attempted to connect with her living family or even her own parents. It wasn’t a lack of care or love for each other but rather a lack of communication about their actual wishes that confused their feelings. Whether the communication errors were  linguistic, generational, cultural, or a mix of all three, Tan realized that she wanted to foster this relationship with her parents and understand her parents.

In an effort to reconcile and reconnect with her parents, Tan moved back home and continued teaching in New York. Over time, Tan’s father was prone to anger and made claims that he would disown Tan. Tan’s significant other at the time asked her, “What do you actually want from your dad?” Tan answered, “I want him to be happy, and I want to be happy.” Tan’s partner told her to simply tell her father how she felt. This had not even crossed Annie’s mind – to simply communicate what she felt and desired for the both of them.  In reflecting on this, Tan said,

“I feel like [my dad has] threatened to disown me so many times for things he doesn’t agree with, but after some point, I realized that it’s never gonna happen because he loves me more than he hates my decisions.”

After many hard conversations, Tan finally understood that her parents just wanted her to be safe and they wanted to care for her. To communicate more clearly with her parents, Tan started to take language classes in Toisan and Cantonese. After many conversations and much patience and reflection, Tan realized that her father’s words were not reflective of what he felt. Tan found that the key to improving her relationship with her parents was to be patient and understanding when it came to their styles of communication. Tan advises others not to let the fear of being “disowned” stop them from defying or trying something different with family members.

Through the twists and turns of life as an activist and educator, Tan learned what it means to grow with the times and aim to understand those around us. Tan hopes her story inspires others to realize that sometimes things will go wrong but to learn from these mistakes and missed opportunities. Tan emphasizes that being honest and open in communicating with others while wanting to understand others is (usually) the best course of action. In activism, we communicate and open ourselves to the opinions of others respectfully in hopes of understanding the other person. With family, we practice patience and the willingness to try a new tactic to understand and communicate with them. Whether it’s a national, global, or familial battle, it is in solidarity that true positive change occurs.

Tan is currently in the process of writing her debut memoir. She noted that writing her memoir has helped her understand her story more. Reflecting on her life and story has allowed her to understand how to have healthy systems of community and healthy practices for mental health. She hopes that, through her memoir, she can also utilize personal storytelling to inspire others. By sharing her own story, she hopes to not only help people connect to the Vincent Chin story but also help others resolve challenges, both in career and in family life. The importance and weight of Chin’s murder are still felt today as the 40th anniversary of his murder passed in 2022 and a variety of remembrance events were hosted. As for what’s next for Annie, she’s been the program manager of the National Virtual Mentoring Program (NVMP) at Apex for Youth, an organization based in New York City focused on supporting Asian American immigrant youth from low-income families. The workshops she focuses on are centered around youth development, mental health, and helping young Asian Americans speak up and express themselves.

To connect with Tan, visit her website to learn more about her and keep up with her: https://annietan.com/.