Jacques Pépin Lecture Series: Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant by Curtis Chin, Author, Documentarian, and Activist

Curtis Chin will be joining BU Food Studies Programs as a virtual guest speaker in our Spring 2024 Pépin Lecture Series. Curtis Chin's memoir, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant, tells the story of his time growing up as a gay Chinese American kid in 1980s Detroit.

1980s Detroits was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung's Chantonese 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, filmaker 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 the world, to his beloved family, and to himself.

Served up by the cofounder of the Asian-American Writer's 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 boy's childhood oasis, scoot into a vinyl booth, and grow up with him - and perhaps even share something off the secret menu.

A co-founder of the Asian American Writers' Workshop in New York City, Curtis Chin served as the non-profits' first Executive Director. He went on to write for network and cable television before transitioning to social justice documentaries. Chin has screened his films at over 600 venues in twenty countries.

Cost: Free