Many parents tell their children never talk to strangers. But Curtis Chin’s parents urged their six kids to ask customers at their Chinese restaurant about their background.
It was their way of showing the children a world outside the Detroit restaurant’s four walls.
“That is something my parents taught me — not to be afraid of people, not to be afraid to ask questions, not to be afraid of asking for help even,” Chin said in a phone interview from his Los Angeles home. “I would have to say that the Chinese restaurant and my parents are probably my greatest teachers in life.”
From co-founding the Asian American Writers’ Workshop to producing documentaries like “Vincent Who?” about the 1982 killing of Vincent Chin, Curtis Chin has been championing other Asian Americans for over 30 years. Now, it’s his turn in the spotlight.
His memoir, “Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant,” comes out Tuesday. The book, his first, has made several fall “must-read” lists including in The Washington Post and Time magazine. It’s a candid, sometimes funny reflection on growing up Chinese American and gay in Detroit in the ’70s and ’80s.
Chin delves into racism, gay rights and other social justice issues, but not by force-feeding them. Like a welcoming restaurant server, he invites the reader to share in digestible bites of memories from childhood up through college graduation. Instead of chapters, anecdotes are dished out in menu sections such as “appetizers and soups,” “rice and noodles” and “main entrees.” They just happen to be stories that are emblematic of that time in Detroit and the country at large, including epidemics of crime, drugs and AIDS.
Despite all this, it’s not a ”misery memoir,” Chin said.
“While the city did have a lot of challenges, I also wanted people to see the other side of Detroit,…
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