In a nation accustomed to demonstrations over police shootings of unarmed black men, this was something completely different: more than 10,000 mostly Chinese-Americans rallying in support of the Chinese-American officer who pulled the trigger.

The rally this past weekend for Peter Liang, a rookie New York officer convicted of recklessly firing a bullet that killed an innocent man in a dark stairwell, marked an unexpectedly large outpouring of activism from an ethnic group that often has to struggle to be heard above the din in the city.