PLEASE NOTE: This is a minimally-edited transcript that originates from a program that uses AI.
Anita Rao
This is Embodied, from PRX and WUNC. I’m Anita Rao.
Curtis Chin grew up for the most part inside Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, his family’s restaurant in Detroit.
Curtis Chin
When you're a little kid, oftentimes your parents will say, don't talk to strangers. My dad gave us the exact opposite advice. Because my dad was a guy who grew up in Chinatown. He never left. He didn't know what opportunities existed outside of the four walls of that Chinese restaurant. But he knew that he had this dining room full of people who did.
Anita Rao
Chung's was the backdrop for many of Curtis’s formative lessons about race, sexuality and belonging.
Curtis Chin
I was conscious that there were all these different types of people who had different values and different ways of seeding the world. And so for me, It really was a question of. Knowing that I'm Asian American, knowing that I'm gay, how do I fit into this mosaic?
Anita Rao
How being a restaurant kid helped Curtis find his own way, just ahead on Embodied.
Curtis Chin is a restaurant kid who grew up inside his family's long running business in Detroit, Chung's Cantonese cuisine. To him, it was like Disneyland.
Curtis Chin
It was just my playground, right? It's where, uh, my brothers and sister were, my cousins, my parents. I got all the food I wanted to eat.
Anita Rao
The floors of the dining room were covered in carpet and the walls in antique artwork, from wooden paintings of the Chinese countryside to flying dragons. Curtis's great-grandfather first opened Chungs in 1940, and by the time Curtis was hanging out there in the 1970s and eighties, Chungs had become somewhat of an institution, a 94 seat dining room, and a multicultural refuge.
Curtis Chin
There was just always people coming in, whether it's customers or just people in Chinatown. Coming into the back kitchen, and so it just felt like this wonderful cauldron of people and ideas and energies.
Anita Rao
It was there at Chung's that Curtis says he learned everything he needed to know. Lessons about family identity and belonging. This is Embodied our show about sex, relationships, and health. I'm Anita Rao.
Curtis Chin is now in his mid fifties and has built a career as a filmmaker, organizer and writer. A few years ago, he published his first memoir. Everything I learned, I learned in a Chinese restaurant. When Curtis was growing up, his parents worked up to 80 hours a week inside that restaurant, which meant that Curtis and his siblings spent a ton of time there after school on weekends and most of the summers. And as a kid, Curtis says he spent a lot of his time literally trying to find a place to sit.
Curtis Chin
I think it comes from just being in a crowded family. I mean, you know, I had five siblings, my two parents, my two grandparents also living at home. It was just so many people there all the time, and it was. Difficult, frankly, to just find a place to sit down, a place, uh, to just collect your thoughts or be by yourself. And so, uh, you really had to compartmentalize.
Anita Rao
How did you feel about your place in the family lineup? You were third out of six kids. Were you very middle child esque, or, or what was your experience?
Curtis Chin
You know, my, my siblings and I. We're kind of merciless to each other. And so we'd get together every month and just sort of discuss who are mom and dad's favorites. And we'd actually come up with our own Nielsen ratings. Like, you know, who was like in first place and uh, I was always last aw. Because I was the only one that didn't necessarily have this thing that my parents could trumpet. And say like, oh, this is Curtis, he's the dot, dot dot. Except when it came time and I became the gay one. But that wasn't necessarily something that they would trumpet. Uh, so finding a way to sort of define myself and figure out how I fit into this world was definitely something I was trying to do as a.
Anita Rao
Let's talk about the, the many worlds that existed inside of the restaurant. You mentioned earlier, kind of the back kitchen, that was the space where the women and children often were, and then the men were in the dining room interacting with customers. Talk to me about these worlds within Chungs and who occupied each space.
Curtis Chin
Yeah, so growing up, um, my grandmother who dominated the whole space, she was the matriarch. She had a rule that. Kids should not be seen. And so that's why we were tucked away in the back kitchen. So my earliest memories were hanging around in this very female dominated space because it wasn't just my grandmother, it was my mom. It was the aunties that were helping to make the egg rolls, um, and to make the almond cookies. But I loved it because it was just a great smell and it was always fun to experiment and just play around. And that's the one thing that my parents are. Pretty good about, because they knew that we were there for so many hours. They didn't necessarily have constraints.
Anita Rao
So your mom kind of encourages you to have a sense of play. She, she seemed to have a real soft spot for you. That was the sense that I got in the book. How, how would you describe your relationship with your mom and kind of how she managed that sphere of the restaurant?
Curtis Chin
That's very interesting that you say that. Um, because I definitely didn't feel like my mom's favorite, but I did have a special connection with my mom because she always said that I was the lucky one. And the way she came about that was, uh, I mean, first was little kids. We'd play Mahjong, right? Like in the back table and stuff like that. And I always won, or it just seemed like. Good things would happen. Like for instance, um, when I was really young, I think I was like three or four years old, I got lost in Hudson's department store, you know, and I had to find my way out and I didn't panic. And I think after that she just really trusted me to be a. Independent. And so she didn't hover over me as much as maybe some of the others.
Anita Rao
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that, that articulation totally makes sense. And then we have your dad who is in the front of the house, big Al seems like this gregarious character. And you describe him as the quintessential Chinese waiter. What does that mean and, and what did that look like in practice? Like who was he in this space?
Curtis Chin
Well, yeah, so, you know, as I got into my, you know, preteen years and we started spending more time in the dining room, that's when I got to know my dad better. And so seeing my dad, working the dining room, making friends with everybody, sitting down and chatting was just a really eye-opening experience for me. When you're a little kid, oftentimes your parents will say, don't talk to strangers. Mm-hmm. My dad. Gave us the exact opposite advice. He said, talk to strangers and who he was talking about. Were all those people sitting in that dining room. Because my dad was a guy who grew up in Chinatown. He never left. He didn't know what opportunities existed outside of the four walls of that Chinese restaurant, but he knew that he had this dining room full of people who did. Anytime he met somebody who he thought had a cool story or just seemed really happy, he'd call all six of us kids to run over and barrage them with questions of, what do you do for a living? How did you get your job? How much money do you make? You know, and it was just this really wonderful, generous way of learning how to connect with people. And um, that's probably the greatest lesson I've had in life. And it's what's opened up opportunities for me for a kid that grew up in the inner city of Detroit.
Anita Rao
What's so interesting to me about your experience is that I, I felt like you kind of were always walking this line of being both an insider and an outsider like your family's restaurant was. In Detroit's Chinatown, your dad had grown up there, but you and your siblings were some of the only American born kids there. The other kids you were interacting with were newer immigrants or from newer immigrant families and, and then you go to school and you're the only Asian kid in your classroom. So talk to me about that experience of kind of constantly moving in between these spaces of race and class as a kid.
Curtis Chin
You know, because I grew up in such a diverse setting, you know, between black and white and Chinatown, and there was a mix of Asians in Chinatown. Mm-hmm. Actually, Filipino, Indian, Afghan, I mean, so I was. Conscious that there were all these different types of people who had different values and different ways of seeding the world. And so for me, um, I think one thing that, that people point pointed out about my book is that I don't have those internal struggles. Culturally of like, am I Asian or am I American? Yeah. Because I understand what being Asian American is because my dad was born here. Do you know what I mean? So I understood that it really was a question of knowing that I'm Asian American, knowing that I'm gay. How do I fit into this mosaic? How do I fit into this multicultural world?
Anita Rao
Where, what spaces did you feel most yourself, like as you were kind of discovering all of these different emerging parts of your intersecting identity?
Curtis Chin
Where did I feel most comfortable? Yeah, probably the dining room. I mean, because when, so my family moved from a predominantly black neighborhood to a predominantly white neighborhood, right? And so in those spaces, um, you know, I always had to perform, right? There is this idea of code switching. I definitely felt like I was performing. And so I adopted certain values that weren't necessarily my values or, or were a heightened version of my values, I would say. But. Definitely being around my family, being in that dining room, there was just so much joy for me.
Anita Rao
You didn't always love it though, like you were sometimes bored.
Curtis Chin
True. Bored? Uh, yes. I bored a lot actually when I was a little kid. Uh, definitely, you know, when I, you know, wasn't allowed to do stuff.
Anita Rao
So you were developing this awareness of kind of who you were, who your family was, really spending a lot of time in this restaurant. Um, but as you mentioned, you also started to experience your first real feelings of sexual desire and some clarity that those feelings were toward other boys. Who were the first top guys that kind of caught your attention?
Curtis Chin
God, the first guy was, was a boy named Rudy, who was a Filipino, uh, kid who was one year older than me. And then, you know, it was our, our cook, uh, Mr. Ma who I, even to this day, I'm like, God, he was so, uh, you know what I mean? Like you just think of he's tell, uh, what was he like?
Anita Rao
Tell us about him.
Curtis Chin
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Anita Rao
Just a short, just paint a short picture. We need a visual.
Curtis Chin
I was just, he was just so cute and he was, had this really tight body, do you know what I mean? Like, he'd come from California. He was really. T and just, he was just so friendly and he had this nice little giggle and just, do you know what I mean? It's like, yeah, my perfect body type. And he was like our fry cook and just, I would just sit back there with him all the time in the back corner and just like watch him cook and just, you know, sit and talk with him. He's just so nice. But yeah, he had a hot body, you know.
Anita Rao
So you had these experiences. You, you knew that you were attracted to boys and men, but there was also some struggle there about how much you could accept those desires. Talk to me about that tension and, and how that manifested
Curtis Chin
to me. I actually consider myself as part of that age generation, even though, um, I wasn't in the coasts during the worst years, like in the early eighties. And so for me. The coming out experience was different in the sense that my family's Buddhist, so we don't have, uh, I didn't experience any homophobia. I didn't have any fear that my family would judge me or kick me out or do anything like that because I was gay, right? But what I did fear was breaking their heart, or more importantly, uh. Bringing more fear and anxiety and worry to them because I knew my parents were already really stressed out working in that Chinese restaurant in the inner city. They had so many things to already deal with. I just didn't wanna burden them with this other thing because, you know, anytime someone came out. Uh, there was this notion that you were gonna get AIDS or that, that that was just the first step of announcing that you were, you had aids and that you were gonna die. I just didn't wanna burden them with more, uh, struggles.
Anita Rao
Just ahead. Curtis talks about his deepening racial consciousness. And his surprising detour into Republican politics. You're listening to Embodied from WUNC, a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can also hear Embodied as a podcast. Follow and subscribe on your platform of choice. We'll be right back.
This is Embodied. I am Anita Rao. We're talking today with Curtis Chin, a filmmaker and author of the memoir. Everything I Learned, I learned in a Chinese restaurant. For decades, Curtis's family owned and operated Chung's, Cantonese cuisine in Detroit's Chinatown. And in 1982, when Curtis was 14 years old. Something happened that rocked his community. A young Asian American man named Vincent Chin was brutally murdered.
Curtis Chin
Vincent was a Chinese American not celebrating his upcoming wedding. He goes to the strip club. Um, you know, these two white auto workers come in and they're overheard saying It's 'cause of you Mother Blanks that were out of work. They're all kicked out of the bar. And, uh, these two guys get in their car and they drive around the streets of Detroit trying to look for Vincent, and they see him sitting outside of McDonald's. They take a baseball bat and they bash his head in
Anita Rao
The racially motivated killing, galvanized Asian Americans across the country. It also reshaped Curtis's understanding of race and place in a black and white Detroit. But when it first happened, Curtis's understanding of the incident was mostly personal.
Curtis Chin
Our families were close friends. My uncle was his best man and we found out about it the very next morning, uh, that Saturday morning that he was in the hospital struggling for his life. And for me, it was just someone I knew that was in the hospital fighting for his life. Um. And, you know, I'd, I'd heard about violence in Detroit already 'cause it was a very violent city. I knew other people that had been murdered, but this one, uh, hit particularly close just because we shared the same last name. We're in the same family association, you know. And so, uh, I really was curious about what had happened to him. And so I checked the newspapers. You know, nobody reported on it that next day. Nothing on tv, nothing on the radio. I checked the next day, nothing. I checked the next day. Again, nothing. I checked for. 12 straight days. There was nothing in the newspaper about this story. Uh, meanwhile, everybody was coming to our restaurant trying to find out what happened. Um, also because we had the gambling den in our basement, but that's another story. Um, but they were coming in and just, you know, wanting to know these details and that contrast between what the mainstream media was covering and what our community cared about really, uh, stuck out at me. Especially several months later when the judge came back and only fined these guys $3,000 and they didn't have to serve a single day in jail. And his rationale was, you don't put these type of people in jail. And um, I guess what he was referring to was white middle class people with jobs. Right.
Anita Rao
You say in your book that before this moment you had felt really secure as an Asian American, but then things changed. What shifted for you after Vincent's murder?
Curtis Chin
Well, I think it was this idea of being the outsider and, um, always believing in the justice system, but then suddenly realizing that maybe, maybe they don't see us as equal people because, um, you know, like I said, how do you. Literally get, you know, kill somebody and then only get $3,000 fine. And I think that the thing that stuck out with me was, again, the, the media coverage versus what our community cared about. And, um. You know, the other contrasting thing was that the stories that the media was covering at that time were about the white auto workers and how so many of them had lost their jobs and were struggling. And because you had all this built in empathy for these killers, you could see why they could walk away. And so that's what it stirred in me was this notion of like, well, we need to tell our stories. People need to know who we are. Right. It's it. The stories are so important because again, this connects to my dad being in that dining room, telling me to talk to people, hear their stories, understand who they are. And, and, and to me, that's why I said, okay, well you know what? People need to hear our stories. They need to hear eye side of it. And so I literally, uh, grabbed the typewriter from the back kitchen and lugged it into the dining room and started writing these letters to the editor. It was my first. Uh, act of activism, of community organizing or whatever you might call it, but it was the first time I just felt like I need to stand up for our community. I need to make sure that people understand who we are. So yeah, it was pivotal.
Anita Rao
What's so shocking to me. Or surprising to me. I guess in, in hearing you retell that and thinking about kind of where this fit into your life story is you were having this awakening, and I'm reading your memoir and I'm like, oh, I know what's about to happen. Like I, I know the direction his politics are going, and then your politics went in the exact opposite direction to what I expected. You started to really resonate with the Republican party and its messaging and, and kind of became a proud. Republican kids. So talk to me about that and, and what was happening for you, these emerging political beliefs, while you were also feeling this strong sense of, um, I don't know, disconnect from what other people were experiencing and a need to articulate your self and your identity as an Asian American.
Curtis Chin
Okay, so I'm thinking about this right now, like in two different ways, right? Yeah. 'cause I did have a, a split life in the sense of, at that time I was going to a school that was 98% white uhhuh, right? And so for me, how did I fit in? I said, okay, I will become the Asian Alex p Keenan. Right, which is the character from Family Ties. I was class president, president of the National Honors Society. I co-founded the Young Republican Club. The Students Against Smoking. Margaret Thatcher was my imaginary girlfriend. I can't believe that that was,
Anita Rao
That's so funny.
Curtis Chin
No, I was a total Right winger. You would not like me. I was pretty awful. Uh, you know, but that's how I felt like I could survive in that world. Now being at a, a Chinese restaurant in the inner city where that neighborhood is a lower income area. And, you know, uh, I think that you, you approach some of these political issues slightly differently when you're a small business owner working in these communities. On one hand you're part of that community, but also because of the power dynamics where you do own a business in there, you, it's a little bit more nuanced in the sense of, um. Our relationship to the police, our relationship to law and order. Um, you know what I mean?
Anita Rao
That's so interesting. Even though you felt like the way the justice system treated Vincent's killers was not fair. Like you, you really like were holding all of these contradictions.
Curtis Chin
Yeah, no, that's interesting. 'cause I haven't even thought about it. You're right. You know, on one hand I didn't think that just the system was fair right. To him. Maybe I thought like maybe that was more the court system. And then maybe the police, but I don't know. I mean, maybe we're all filled with contradictions, right? And they're always based off of, um, real life experiences and, uh, sometimes we don't take a step back and sort of reconcile these different things. But, uh, for me, I, I do feel like maybe it was also the idea of being a republican of, of, uh, that, that. I don't wanna say myth that they say mm-hmm. About like, you know, pull yourself up from your bootstraps type of idea. Yeah. Um, and that really resonated with me too, that idea, because, you know, when you come from an immigrant household, that's what these people teach you. Right. It's like, work hard and you will succeed. Right. So in that sense, I still do, uh, believe in hard work, right. As a way of getting ahead. But I also am now aware of this other half, which is, you know, despite that. There is still this thing called systematic racism and institutional racism, which has to be overcome, right? So in, in my my world, the solution is tackling both, right? Like how do you get people to have individual agency to overcome things and at the same time, how do you tackle these greater barriers, which, uh, levels the playing field so that when those people put in that effort, they feel like they're being treated with the same opportunities that others have.
Anita Rao
So. There was a lot happening for you in, in those years and, and you say in your memoir that with the distractions of everything happening in Detroit, you had sort of pushed off dealing with your sexuality, tried to kind of shove down the thoughts and feelings, but they did keep kind of creeping back in. They did kind of keep coming. Back up to the surface and you were sort of tracking how your parents responded to mentions of gayness. You were really kind of tracking your environment to see if and how you could fit. Tell me about that and, and what was going on for you at this tension was building between pushing your feelings down, but also knowing that your sexuality was what it was.
Curtis Chin
Yeah, so to some degree I was testing my parents to sort of see how they would respond, how they felt about gay issues and, you know, did they, like for instance, um, you know, when we were watching television and there was a news report about aids, I really wanted to see how my mom, you know, would respond to that. And, uh, you know, I had to give them credit. They always pass the test. You know, there was another, uh, scene in my book where my mom was friendly with the prostitutes in the neighborhood. Right. And I just pushed her. I'm like, well, do you know what these, what they're doing for work, you know how they're making a living? And she's like, yeah, they're just working like everybody else. They need to make a living. Hmm. And it's just like, whoa. You don't think that, you know, um. You know, a a Chinese woman, immigrant woman would have such a progressive view on sex workers.
Anita Rao
Well, 'cause your restaurant was inside the red light district. Right. So how did that proximity kind of affect your own understanding of sex and sexuality?
Curtis Chin
Yeah. So when they say the bad part about Detroit. We were in the bad part of Detroit Uhhuh. I mean, literally, uh, if you look at the crime stats, our precinct was the most crime, you know, out of the whole city of Detroit. It was just really, uh, a bad area. Um, but I, I think prostitution and sex work were the least of the problems. Hmm. When people are getting murdered. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Or when buildings are burning down or when, you know, I guess. Drugs. Drugs probably seemed like a worse issue. Right? And you'd see junkies and stuff like that on the streets. And then even homeless people, I think seem to be a bigger issue. I think that's the context of, you know, why maybe my mom was so libertarian about these things. It's like she's not worried about that. She's worried about safety. She's worried about her kids, you know, um, getting drugs. She's worried about like getting our kids getting shot, you know, she's worried about all these other things.
Anita Rao
So having these a, a, a restaurant space where you had a customer base that was diverse, you were down the street from a drag bar, and you had experiences kind of serving a whole variety of clientele, and I want you to. Tell us about this experience that you had as you got older. You were a waiter, um, and there was one evening where you were helping out in the front room and a gay couple came in, one of whom was dressed in drag, and, uh, the evening kind of evolved in an unexpected way. Will you tell me about that and, and what you took away from that encounter?
Curtis Chin
Yeah, so the beauty of the restaurant was that we literally saw the whole city of Detroit coming into our, our restaurant, everybody from Mayor Coleman Young, the first black mayor to, uh, the pimps and prostitutes, you know, in that neighborhood. But in terms of that specific incident that you're talking about is like, I was at a age where I was struggling with my sexual identity, uh, vis-a-vis aids, right? Because everything that you ever heard about, you know, gay people is that they were. They were ill, they were dying. They had been kicked out by their family. It was a very bleak, uh, representation for gay people. And then one night, this one couple comes in and they're just laughing and having a wonderful time. And for the first time I did not think of being gay as a death sentence. I thought like, wow. You can actually laugh as a gay person. And so I spent a lot of attention, you know, on them and giving them free stuff, which my grandmother would've hated, you know, uh, it was just really being very attentive to them. And then as I was going back to put their order in the drag queen or the female in person here, I think that's what they called back then. Um, you know, uh, just shouted across the floor like, you better not be serving us dog meat. I'm like. Whoa. You know, I'd gone from this joy and excitement of feeling I'd found my people to this like really low of like, you raise this piece of, you know, like, and so I think that sometimes life surprises you like that, right? Hmm. Like finding that security, it's like you, you hope for certain things and maybe they don't always turn out. And yet how do you navigate that? These weird emotions, these conflicting emotions? 'cause life can be pretty messy sometimes.
Anita Rao
Yeah. I really felt for you when reading that story, because it felt like you were trying so often to kind of observe the world, to see whether it was safe for you to be a certain version of yourself. Like watching your mom watch the news and saying, okay, it's, it's, it's, it could be safe for me to kind of be gay with her, or then watching in the restaurant and like, okay, it could be safe. And then you kind of had your heart broken when like things didn't turn out as you expected. Like, did you feel like you could kind of be all the parts of yourself? At that point, or like how were you feeling about your various identities?
Curtis Chin
Um. I never had the internal conflicts of, of, you know, feeling like I'm, 'cause I, I actually think of code switching as actually a good skillset. I'm not one of those people who feel like, oh, it's a negative thing, I'm split. I feel like being able to code switch and adapt and things like that actually opens up new worlds for you because it says that you can relate and you can fit into different, uh, situations. And I've always just felt like that's a wonderful trait to have and it gives me opportunities having grown up. I guess what we would say bicultural or a third culture kid. Is that the term that people use?
Anita Rao
Yeah. Yeah.
Curtis Chin
I actually think these are wonderful things. I don't think of them as negative drawbacks, and some people do. 'cause they feel like, oh, I don't, I don't wanna be split. I want to be a whole person. I want to be my own entity. But we wear different hats all the time in different spaces, and that doesn't mean that it, it inherently, uh, challenges us. Right? As long as at the deep core, we know who we are. It's basically just about grabbing from a, a, uh, grab bag of different skills, right? And tricks that you can use.
Anita Rao
That's really interesting. I've never heard that. Frame on it before. I'm curious, like, does that come without any grief for you or, or do you just kind of accept that grief is a part of existing in both of these identities?
Curtis Chin
Grief. Uh hmm.
Anita Rao
Grief in the sense that like, I guess thinking back to that restaurant story, the moment of being like, oh wow, okay, so like I can be gay with. In this space, but I can't, you know, they're not gonna necessarily accept me as an Asian American like that. There are times when the coexistence of those identities isn't met with warmth.
Curtis Chin
The challenge for me is, uh, I accept the world that this is the way it is. Mm-hmm. Right? And maybe that's a Buddhist philosophy is like, the world is shitty, are you gonna do with it? Right. Um, so for me it was always just navigating like, well, how do I address these things? This is the way it is. I mean, and I do think this more so. As an adult now, and I wonder if I thought this way as a kid as well, is that I loved growing up in a multicultural world, a society, that dining room, right? I loved meeting different peoples of all the time, and so if that meant, the occasional drawback is that I would experience some racism, some homophobia, some gender discrimination, some religious discrimination, whatever. It was worth it for the trade off, for the opportunity to meet other people. So I say that about living in America, this multicultural society, right? Is that racism, homophobia, all these things are always gonna be around, right? Because we all come from these different cultures. We all have these different traditional sets of values that sort of form the way we look at the world, right? And so I, I accept that racism is part of America, but I think for me, the trade off. A multicultural society where we can learn from different people and experience different cultures in our own backyard, um, I think is is worth it. Right?
Anita Rao
So as you kind of grew up, you go away to college, not too far. You go to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. How were your politics shifting? Like are you still a re member of the Republican Club at this time, or, or how are, how are your politics evolving as you became a young adult?
Curtis Chin
Well, first of all, you know, I didn't wanna go to college, right? Yeah. I'm considered a first generation college kid, and, uh, given everything that I'd seen growing up, all that. And all that destruction, everything. I just didn't understand the value of sitting in a classroom for four more years. But my mom, who was an immigrant and wanted us to get out of the inner city really focused on education. She really pushed us to work hard. And so I, I, you know, rationalized what would be me giving up four years of my life for a woman who's given up her whole life for me? And so, um, I said, I made a deal with her. I said, okay mom, I'll apply to college but I'll only apply to one school and if I don't get in, I'm not going right. And she said, okay, fine. You apply to Michigan. And I applied to Michigan and sadly I got in. And so I went off to college. Uh, I didn't know what I was gonna study. I also had to work full-time 'cause I had to pay for college. And so I would take these night courses. You know, uh, at night there just seems to be a lot of creative writing courses being offered at 6 00 PM and I did the math and I said, okay, if I only study poetry and I wrote haikus, I could graduate in fewer than 500 words. And so that was my whole idea of college. You know
Anita Rao
An immigrant parents dream, their kid majoring in poetry. Yeah.
Curtis Chin
At least it was an Asian poet, you know? You know. But anyway, so within that context, I really was just focusing and I was working full-time, like at a full-time job and I went to school at night. So I, the idea of how did my politics shift it? Difficult because Michigan is a, a traditionally very liberal school, and so I remained a Republican, but there were three policies, um, you know, that, that, uh, shifted my positions a bit. And they all started with the letter. A, uh, the first one was apartheid. Uh, I didn't understand how Reagan supported a clearly racist, uh. System to me. The second one was aids. At the time the Republicans were pushing the thing called compassionate conservatism, which I totally could get right, because as Buddhists were taught to be compassionate. But, uh, when I'd go to Republican meetings, they weren't compassionate, right? And so clearly there was a disconnect there. And the third eventually was abortion because, you know, I had these, um. You know, hallmates, uh, these two women who just kept her hanging me every meal saying, how can you be a member of that party? They're so awful. I was still in the closet at that time, granted, but still as a person of color, they're like, how can you be a part of this? Da da da da. And um, you know, they finally made me see the light of day when they said, it's just about controlling our bodies. And for me, I made that connection and said, well, that's all I wanna do too. I just wanna control my body. And the event that really switched me off was the Republican National Convention in Houston in 1992 when Pat Buchanan came on and just did. Really was very anti-gay and, you know, um, just that's when I left the party officially and said I cannot be a Republican anymore.
Anita Rao
Just ahead, we'll talk about how Curtis found space for all of his intersecting identities in adulthood and had to make some difficult choices about the future of his family's restaurant. As always, you can hear the podcast version of this show by following Embodied on your platform of choice. We'll be right back.
This is Embodied. I'm Anita Rao. Curtis Chin was a restaurant kid who came of age as a gay Asian American boy in Detroit in the 1970s and eighties. He's been telling us about the ups and downs of navigating his place in his family and his many identities, but as he moved into adulthood, the search for belonging got easier.
Curtis Chin
Once you come out to yourself and you accept who you are, the rest of it are just, you know, additional hurdles, right? Whether it's coming out to your parents or extended relatives. Uh, you're constantly always having to come out.
Anita Rao
After coming out to some of his friends and siblings, Curtis decided to jump that final hurdle in his twenties and came out to his parents.
Curtis Chin
The coming out was actually an accident. You know, so it's a kind of a funny accident. Uh, so, you know, um, it really was kind of unplanned. Uh, but at the same time, um, what happened afterwards, after that happened was my parents, um, met up with a couple of their customers, uh, this, this, uh. Upwardly mobile, gay, white couple. One was a doctor and one was a university administrator. And, uh, they just filled my parents' head with all the worst stereotypes about gay people. Like, oh, he's gonna have a good life. He's gonna, he's gonna go to the museums and theater. You know what I mean? Like, don't worry about it. And, you know, uh, at the end of the day, my parents, you know, really, uh, accepted me like it was like two days later they literally turned around and, because at the end of the day, my parents just wanted to make sure I'd be safe and secure. Because they had this role model couple, you know, who are some of their closest friends in Detroit, you know, at the restaurant, um, this gay couple. I think that that made them feel okay. And I think that's part of it too is like the unknown, right? For a lot of families and particularly immigrant families. And that's why coming out is so important because you can provide a role model and it does, um. Assuage the fears that some people might have of the unknown.
Anita Rao
Was it a journey though to figure out, like this has been something that you had been keeping inside for so long, something you had been exploring on your own in your life in New York City, so to eventually kind of turn back to, to your family and do this, like whether or not it. You, you felt emotionally like it wasn't a big deal, like it is kind of a, a, a big turning point, right?
Curtis Chin
Well, I mean, later on when I'm in my twenties, I mean, it finally built to that point because, uh, you know, I'd moved off to New York and the, I encountered a lot of success very early on in New York, uh, for whatever reasons. Um, and so then the contrast between that. World where I was out and open and just living this wonderful life and then having to go back to, uh, Detroit and again, being that third middle child and, and reoccupying that space, you know, was different. And then eventually having to understand that, you know, I've, I do have to reconcile that a little bit. You know, and partly also because by that time I had met or I had reconnected with, uh, my husband, my current husband, Jeff.
Anita Rao
Well, yeah, you introduce us in the book to a character who you meet in college when a friend tries to set you up, nothing comes of it. And then in the acknowledgements. The first person you think is that same Jeff, so I need to know how you two reconnected. And, and was he a part of your decision to come out to your parents?
Curtis Chin
Yeah. So that, that was Jeff. I mean, so, um, how it happened was that, you know, I was in college at, at my job and you know, this, uh, Asian American activist comes in and says, you need to become more active. I showed up to this meeting and, you know, they're all like, well, you have to date another Asian guy, you know, and I'm like. Uh, I haven't dated anybody, so, but if you find me an Asian guy, I'm happy to date him. And so they, they made it a mission to find me the one other gay Asian on campus. And so, but unfortunately he was getting ready to take a, a break from law school and so we didn't really, we met up, but we didn. Uh, really connect. And it wasn't until years later when, um, Stonewall the big, you know, riot that happened was having its 25th anniversary in New York City. And, uh, I happened to have a really large apartment at that time where I could offer free housing to 17 guys from around the country to just crash out in my living room in Manhattan. So, uh, he was one of those guys. And so that's how we reconnected, um, you know, over Stonewall. We've been together for 31 years since then. Now.
Anita Rao
Wow. You say in your book that you hoped for a partner that you could bring to your family's dinner table. Have you been able to do that with him? Like, have they accepted him into the fold?
Curtis Chin
Oh yeah, they're much nicer to him than they are to me. Um, you know, they contact him. He's fully integrated into it. Partly, and this is my excuses because I travel a lot, a lot for my book. They never know what time zone I'm in. So that's why it's very easy for them just to, 'cause they know where Jeff is. Jeff is here in la, they know he's on Pacific Time. So that's my excuse.
Anita Rao
So I wanna get back to the story of Chung's, your family's restaurant, and kind of track the parallel timelines of what was happening with the restaurant and with you. So after college, you moved to New York City to pursue writing, and your family opens a second Chung's location in the suburbs. In the late 1990s, you moved to LA to work as a television writer, and then in 2005 you get a phone call that your parents have been involved in a really bad car accident. Tell me what happened from there.
Curtis Chin
I get this terrible phone call, like you said, and my parents are in a car accident and my dad passed away and my mom was severely injured and my brother Chris, the golden child, immediately whisked her out to California to help her, right? Because he's a doctor now. Um, and by the end of that week, all my other siblings decided they were also gonna leave, uh, and, and go to California to help my mom. And I was left behind trying to decide, uh, what do I do? Do I go? Back to LA and, and continued this pursuit of TV writing, which wasn't easy for Asian Americans back then, right? 'cause there were just no shows. Or do I stay in Detroit and take over this restaurant that was founded by my great-grandfather in 1940. So after the car accident, I was back home in Detroit and I was the one, you know, entrusted to figure out what to do with it. I don't know how it fell onto my shoulders. Maybe because I was wrapping up on a TV show at that time and I had time to sort of be back there, but I was the one who had to spearhead all that. And I was back in Detroit for, uh, a whole year.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Curtis Chin
Right. Going back and forth, but primarily just how do you get this place to sell? Detroit was really struggling back then. Right? Nobody was buying any businesses. Um, and I knew I had to get a good price for it because that was the only savings my mom had, right. That was gonna be her nest egg. And so there was this pressure to not like, just sell it in a fire sale. 'cause my mom needed that money. And at the same time, these emotional struggles of like, how do I adapt back because I hadn't worked in the restaurant in, uh, good 15 years. Right. I'm, I'm not. I'm not blue collar in that sense anymore. I'm not working with my hands. I'm sitting in a writer's room using my brain, right? And so it's like that cultural shock for me, but also at the same time, you know, when I was growing up in the restaurant, it was all our extended family members, you know, who were there. Now suddenly there's this restaurant with, you know, other different types of Chinese people with different regions and also other Asians, you know, who were working there too. It was just, it's not. The same childhood that I had. And so it was all that adjustment. And, um,
Anita Rao
And you're grieving, like you're grieving the loss of your father who was this huge figure, running this space. Like what were you thinking about in terms of him and what he would've wanted for the restaurant?
Curtis Chin
Yeah, my dad definitely would've wanted us to, um, continue with it. Right? He never forced us to, but I think he would've wanted to because by the time it got to him, he was the third generation, right? Um, and he loved that place. So I think he would've loved to see it continue on. But in terms of the grieving process, and we all grieve differently, and people have actually said to me, people who read, you know, the early drafts of that manuscript were like, why don't you. Cry more, like, why don't you show more emotion? And I just, I said, well, that maybe that's not how I was really raised. Right. To me. Um, the way I show my love for my family is to keep it together, is to make sure that my mom is taken care of. Right. To make sure that, that she will be fine. And I felt like that's where I was devoting my energy. I mean, that's part of the thing too, is like, I don't know if I had time to grieve my dad so much because we were also so focused on my mom, like in making sure that she recovered. And so, uh, it wasn't the first time I actually cried. And this is in that manuscript was, um, broke Back Martin, the movie. Mm. You know, the Gay Ca Cowboy movie Yeah. Had just come out and, um, the first time I cried was like going to see that movie in a darkened theater by myself. And you know, in that pivotal moment where he says like, we could have had a good life, I just started crying. Uh, you know, in that one scene where, you know, they talk about the life they could have had. I just started bawling, like at that time, and I'm sure everybody thought that I was, you know, eventually crying for, for that couple in Jake Gyllenhaal, but I was crying for my dad at that time.
Anita Rao
So we have you kind of located in this moment of making this. Transition between, you know, writing and being in the restaurant. You do go back to writing and filmmaking, but there was a big shift in you internally in the kind of work that you wanted to do. Tell me about that shift and, and what was changing for you.
Curtis Chin
I decided that I wanted to be more in control of the type of. Um, stories I was telling, and so I decided to go back to LA and not stay in Detroit to sell the restaurant. I would go back to LA but I would work on independent films. Particularly a documentary about the Vincent Chin murder. 'cause I thought back, like, what would be a story my dad would want me to tell and 'cause he was friends with Vincent, I thought like, okay, that that'll be a story, um, that my dad would be proud of me spending time working on. And so that's what I did. And I didn't think I would be leaving TV permanently. I always thought of it as just temporarily while I told some stories that I wanted. But that's turned into like a 15 year journey where I've primarily been, um. Doing independent documentaries. Um,
Anita Rao
I wanna go back to, to, to the Vincent Chin documentary for a second. Okay. Because I'm, I'm really curious what it was like to return to that as an adult. Like you'd seen that story firsthand from your kid point of view at age 14. Watch the difference between what your community experienced and what was reported. What was it like to return to that as a filmmaker with the decades of, of context that you then had.
Curtis Chin
Much like the passing of my dad. I always try to find, I try, always try to move forward and what is the light in this situation? Mm-hmm. Because that's what we're taught to do is like find the light in it. Um, and for me, the light in the Vincent Chin case was just this idea of a Pan-Asian, you know, political movement. And I was very invested in that, even back then as a kid. And so I decided to make a documentary about that.
Anita Rao
Well, you mentioned you kind of have kept, have gotten good at keeping your emotions at a distance, like emotionally. What was it like to return to that story for you, if you can access that?
Curtis Chin
Well, the positive stuff is, you know, like, um. Of like, well, community building, which is important to me, Asian Americans standing up for ourselves and our civil rights is important to me. So those are the things that motivate me, and those are the things I just sort of focus on. I don't focus on the lost part because maybe 'cause I've. Gone through so much in life. Like, uh, even if it's more peripheral to me in my life, it's, it's like, but I've had to learn how to move forward with all that stuff. Maybe it's a coping mechanism.
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Curtis Chin
That I've, that I've developed. Uh, and hopefully I'm not forgetful about these things. So moving on, hopefully I don't forget them, but I use them to infuse and inspire and motivate me, and I feel like that's what I've done. I mean, like even with the passing of my dad, I don't forget my dad, but I use the memory of him and the things he taught me. And I do ask myself like, you know, how would my dad deal with certain situations? But I still have that momentum, the forward momentum, right? I just carry the things with me, uh, as I push forward.
Anita Rao
Do you still do the kind of code switching that you were doing as a teenager in your adult life? Or, or do you have communities that are like queer Asian communities where you can be kind of all parts of yourself?
Curtis Chin
Yeah, I, I do have queer communities, um, queer Asian communities, um, or just, you know, but it's always a little bit different, right? Like, so when I'm around a bunch of, you know, uh, straight Asians. You know, it's different than when I'm around a bunch of, uh, white and black gay people. Do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Um. I hate to like do a hierarchical thing about these things, right? Because we all occupy all these different, um, hats where we can be an outsider or a marginalized person. Like, so for me, obviously race 'cause I'm Asian, uh, you know, sexual identity because I'm queer, I'm Buddhist, so I'm a religious minority. Uh, I'm working class, you know, oftentimes dealing with people that come from, uh, families of bit more means, I would say race and class are probably. Bigger to me than sexual orientation of feeling like an outsider. I'm a kid from the inner city of Detroit who started, you know, with the Detroit public schools. I mean, you know, um, so I do sometimes have insecurities about that. If I have to be honest with you about that. I try not to let that get to me. Um, you, but then, you know, I always think like, well, I should be, instead of feeling insecure about it, I should actually be proud of it.
Anita Rao
It feels like there are so many kind of contradictions that you have lived through and experienced in your life, and it seems like you don't always necessarily see it that way, but I, I do wonder about that, like, as you reflect on all of this professional work that you've done, as you have the experience to kind of tell your story in your own words, is it one of contradictions for you? How would you, how would you explain that?
Curtis Chin
No, I don't think so. Like when I'm writing and I'm writing these memoirs, I'm not trying to understand myself. Mm-hmm. I'm just trying to recount myself, you know, and, uh, just say, well, these are the things that happen and let other people interpret it, whatever. And I don't make that interpretation myself and say, well, this is where I am.
Anita Rao
How does your family feel about your telling your story on your own terms and kind of establishing, um. This version of, of the family story.
Curtis Chin
Well, that's exactly it. So, you know, um, my family hasn't read the book, nor did they plan to read the book. According to my siblings, my brothers, they're like, well, that's your version of the history. According to my sister, she's like, I have zero interest in learning about your sexual awakening. And so, you know, um, I do think they support me though, because every time I post on Facebook, they do hit the like button. And so I think that shows support and they do come out to the readings. And I think particularly for my mom, who again, has had such a tough life and so much of her sense of self-worth, unfortunately, is tied into her kids and her kids' success. And because, um, you know, all of her friends back in Detroit call her up all the time whenever they hear me or see me or something that makes her feel good. And so I'm happy that I can give that to her. Hmm. I'd feel much happier if my mom could find that. Internal happiness for herself, right? Of her own success and her going off and doing something for herself. But because she's not able to do that for whatever reasons, I'm happy to, um, you know, be that good son to, to make her feel like her life was, uh, there was value, like, you know, in terms of what she did, which, which was raising her six kids.
Anita Rao
Well, Curtis Chen, thank you so much for the conversation, for your book and for sharing all of these stories with us. It's been a pleasure to talk with you.
Curtis Chin
Oh, thank you so much.
Anita Rao
Curtis Chin is the author of the memoir, everything I Learned I Learned in a Chinese restaurant. You can find out more about him and his work at our website, embodi w unc.org. You can also stay up to date by following us on Instagram. Our handle is @EmbodiedWUNC. Go there to see photos of young Curtis and his family. Today's episode is produced by Gabriella Glueck and edited by Amanda Magnus. Kaia Findlay is our producer, Sara Nics provided editorial guidance for the show. Nina Scott is our intern, and Jenni Lawson, our technical director. Quilla, wrote our theme music. This program is recorded at the American Tobacco Historic District. WUNC is a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm Anita Rao.