Curtis Chin - Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant

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.

A co-founder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York City, Curtis Chin served as the non-profits’ 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 Appetit, 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 memoir, "Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant" was published by Little, Brown in Fall 2023. His essay in Bon Appetit was selected for Best Food Writing in America 2023.