Curtis Chin’s ‘Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant’ Selected as Book One by Simon’s Rock

Curtis Chin

BARRYTOWN, NY — Simon’s Rock at Bard College has selected writer and filmmaker Curtis Chin’s Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant as this year’s Book One. Chin will visit campus to give the Book One Lecture on Tuesday, September 2 at 7:00 pm in the Lecture Hall of the Massena East Wing, 30 Seminary Road, Barrytown, NY. All incoming and returning Bard Academy and Simon’s Rock students will receive a copy of Everything I Learned... when they arrive for the start of the fall semester, and all members of the campus and local communities are invited to attend the Book One Lecture.

Chin's memoir describes his experiences growing up in 1980s Detroit, where his family owned Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine. The restaurant was a haven 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. Beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Chin came of age: he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; he navigated the divided city’s spiraling misfortunes; and — 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.

Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant 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 comedy for network and cable television before transitioning to social justice documentaries. Chin has screened his films at over 600 venues in 20 countries. He has written for CNN, Bon Appetit, the Detroit Free Press, and the Boston Globe. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Chin has received awards from ABC/Disney Television, New York Foundation for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and more.

About Book One: Since 2005, Book One has offered members of the incoming class a common starting point for their college careers. Each year, a book is selected based on excellence and suitability for promoting interdisciplinary conversations about the intersection of cultures. The book, lecture, and supporting materials in the Writing and Thinking Workshop anthology are used as an occasion for discussion and writing throughout the Workshop and into First-Year Seminar, enhancing the diversity and interdisciplinary focus of our curriculum. This year, Book One is being extended to all four years of the Bard Academy and Simon’s Rock A.A. program arc.