Book Talk w/ Curtis Chin: “Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant”

Professor Eileen Chow will engage author Curtis Chin in a candid discussion about his 2023 memoir detailing his experiences growing up queer and Asian in the Midwest.

About the book:

Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung's Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone-from the city's first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples-could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city's spiraling misfortunes; and where-between helpings of almond boneless chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and some of his own, less-savory culinary concoctions-he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family, and to himself.

Served up by the cofounder of the Asian American Writers' Workshop and structured around the very menu that graced the tables of Chung's, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is both a memoir and an invitation: to step inside one boy's childhood oasis, scoot into a vinyl booth, and grow up with him-and perhaps even share something off the secret menu.

About the author:

Curtis Chin is the author of the award-winning memoir, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant. A co-founder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York City, Curtis Chin served as the nonprofit's first Executive Director. He went on to write comedy for network and cable television before transitioning to social justice documentaries. Chin has screened his films at over 600 venues in twenty countries. He has written for CNN, Bon Appétit, the Detroit Free Press, and the Emancipator/Boston Globe.

A graduate of the University of Michigan, Chin has received awards from ABC/Disney Television, New York Foundation for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and more. His essay in Bon Appétit was selected for Best Food Writing in America 2023, and his short documentary, “Dear Corky,” about the pathbreaking Corky Lee, premiered on American Masters (PBS). He is currently working on a new Chinese Restaurant project.

What the critics said:

"Vivid, moving, funny, and heartfelt, Curtis Chin's memoir showcases his talents as an activist and a storyteller. This is one man's story of growing up gay, Chinese American, and working class in 1980s Detroit, finding a place in a large and loving immigrant family and in a changing city—and in doing so, carving out a place in the world for himself."

-Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers