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

Asian American Writers’ Workshop cofounder and producer/director/activist Chin tells his coming-of-age story in this memoir, set largely at his parents’ Chinese restaurant in ‘70s Detroit. He offers a gripping perspective of growing up Asian American in a city notorious for explosive tensions between its Black and white residents. Chin also reveals that he is queer and struggled to come out to his family. He illuminates the life of the restaurant, replete with eccentric staff, signature recipes, famous egg rolls, Chin’s often cranky grandmother, and plenty of kitchen experimentation. Chin’s parents eventually moved their extended family to Troy, MI, with hopes that its better-funded schools would lead to more opportunities. The author and his siblings became first-generation college students, but Chin describes honestly the isolation he felt as the sole person of color in a classroom full of white faces. He and his family were also harassed as they tried to settle into their new neighborhood. In college, Chin gravitated to writing poetry and short stories.