A Detroit native is promoting his memoir. He stopped by Northern Illinois University to give insight on his book and Midwest roots.
“DETROIT-VS- EVERYBODY” was the phrase plastered on the t-shirt Curtis Chin wore during his recent author talk.
“As someone who grew up in Detroit, we feel like we got a lot from everybody,” Chin explained. “We're like the armpit of the country, right, like, and so I feel like that's why, you know, we love our hometown, and we really defend it to its core.”
His website is even called curtisfromdetroit.
The writer is touring to promote his book “Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant.” The title refers to his experiences at his family-owned restaurant. The book is set up like a Chinese menu. It’s broken up like this: The Tea, Appetizers and Soups, Rice and Noodles, Main Entrees and The Fortune Cookie. He numbered the chapters like the menu by using things like A-7, “A” referring to appetizers.
The opening line in his book is “Welcome to Chung’s. Is this for here or to go?” Chin said that phrase is the most common thing you hear when you enter a Chinese restaurant. He also said it reminds him of how welcoming his dad was towards customers.
Chin also said the entry phrase was a question he pondered at one point in his life.
“Do we stay with our family, the secure place that, you know, like, I'm getting all this free food I want, my siblings and cousins are all there,” he said. “Meanwhile, the city of Detroit is literally burning down around us. And I'm also struggling with my own identity and coming out.”
Chin said accepting he was gay meant he had to accept that he might not live past the age of 30. Chin said most of the images that he saw of gay men in the 1980s were of them being sick and dying from AIDS-related illnesses.
His mother wanted him to go to college, but Chin said he didn’t see the point of wasting time in a classroom since he thought he wouldn’t live that long. But he decided to sacrifice his time for someone who he said had surrendered most of her life for him. He agreed to apply to one school -- the University of Michigan. Chin was accepted and decided to study creative writing. He focused on poetry. After graduating, he moved to New York, became a poet, and said he was really “killing it.” He co-founded the Asian American Writers Workshop in New York, won a New York Foundation for the Arts award and was once the chair of the state’s Art Council Panel.
“Writing poetry in New York is awesome, because you're riding subways, you're listening to different voices,” he added, “you're smelling different things. I mean, it's just great for all the senses, right? But then you move to LA, and you're sitting in your car, listening to Ryan Seacrest, and you're probably not going to write very many good poems on that.”
Moving to the West Coast shifted his writing from poetry to television writing. While he was there, his parents were in a car accident and his father died.
“And I had to go back to Detroit at that time, and I was writing for the Disney Channel at that time,” he said. “And I just, had to ask myself, ‘What would my dad want me to do? Like what would make him proud?’”
He said in that moment he thought back to when his dad’s friend Vincent Chin was killed in a hate crime. This gave him the desire to do something he felt was more meaningful. He started creating documentaries that focus on social justice.
Chin has a wide writing range, going from serious to comical. He filled the NIU lounge with lots of laughs as he weaved through his stories.
Aye is a NIU student from Myanmar. She said she was impressed with Chin’s life, especially his stories about his mom.
“She is very, you know, like, how can I say, wise to think about everything out of the box to bring on the table, whether who she is or whoever she is talking to, she doesn't care,” Aye said. “She is like, taking everything to the positive perspective to her life. And then, the restaurant is really awesome. And he's really awesome too.”
Jonathan Venecia is a psychology major at NIU. He said this is his first time attending a book signing.
“I don't really come across too many Asian American writers or opportunities to come to like a book signing event. So, it was nice to kind of see that representation here at NIU.”
The event was sponsored by Northern Illinois University Libraries, Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning, Kishwaukee College Library, DeKalb Public Library, Sycamore Public Library, Ellwood House Museum, and Robin's Nest Bookshoppe.
Chin has over a dozen more stops scheduled in his tour — some even twice a day. He said the one thing he wants people to take away from these author talks is how important it is to show compassion to each other. He said he still feels like a waiter and wants to continue to make other people’s lives easier.
