Author Talk | Curtis Chin – Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant
April 23 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Meet Curtis Chin for a discussion of Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant, an award-winning memoir of his time growing up as a gay Chinese American kid in 1980’s Detroit. Curtis will be joined in conversation by Ottawa artist Don Kwan.
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.
Curtis Chin co-founded the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York City, and 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 doc, Dear Corky, premiered on American Masters (PBS). He can be found at CurtisfromDetroit.com.
Don Kwan is a queer third-generation Chinese Canadian artist whose work is influenced by his upbringing in a family-owned restaurant in Ottawa’s Chinatown. He uses mixed media, found objects, and sourced personal text and photographs to explore questions of identity, belonging, and place, reflecting on his family history while weaving intriguing stories about the Chinese Canadian diaspora.
Support Chinatown seniors through the Nancy and Alan Kwan Chinatown Foundation. Optional donations of $20 or more will receive a tax receipt
