Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir

ISBN: 031650775X

Author: Chin, Curtis

Condition: New

An American Library Association Stonewall Honor BookMost Anticipated This Fall in TIME, San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, Goodreads, Lamba Literary Review, Kirkus Reviews, and PinkNewsThis vivid, moving, funny, and heartfelt memoir tells the story of Curtis Chins time growing up as a gay Chinese American kid in 1980s Detroit (Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers). Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chungs Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone-from the citys 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 citys 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 Chungs, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is both a memoir and an invitation: to step inside one boys childhood oasis, scoot into a vinyl booth, and grow up with him-and perhaps even share something off the secret menu.