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“Flipping the Narrative”: An Interview with Curtis Chin

Juliette Bourdin, Christelle Ha Soon-Lahaye et Curtis Chin

Résumés

Curtis Chin est un écrivain, producteur et réalisateur asio-américain, également cofondateur et premier directeur exécutif de l’Asian American Writers’ Workshop à New York. Il a d’abord été scénariste de comédies pour la télévision avant de se tourner vers la réalisation de documentaires portant sur la justice sociale. Ses films ont été projetés dans plus de 600 salles à travers une vingtaine de pays. Il a signé de nombreux articles dans des journaux nationaux et a reçu plusieurs prix, dont celui du National Endowment for the Arts. Son essai publié dans Bon Appétit Magazine a été sélectionné pour le prix Best Food Writing in America en 2023 et son court métrage, Dear Corky, sur le photographe asio-américain Corky Lee a été diffusé pour la première fois en 2024 sur PBS pour la série « American Masters Shorts ». Son dernier documentaire en date, « Warren King : King of Cardboard », sur l’artiste asio-américain Warren King a été diffusé également sur PBS en novembre 2025.

En octobre 2023, Curtis Chin a publié un récit autobiographique intitulé Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant, dans lequel il raconte son enfance et sa jeunesse à Détroit, ainsi que ses années en tant qu’étudiant de première génération à l’université du Michigan. Il y évoque entre autres la difficulté à grandir en tant que jeune Asio-Américain dans une ville majoritairement noire et blanche et à faire son coming out au sein de sa communauté immigrée et ouvrière. Les mémoires de Curtis Chin ont reçu de nombreux prix et ont notamment été salués par l’Association for Asian American Studies en 2025.

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In May and June 2025, Curtis Chin came to Europe to present his memoir and participated in several events in France, which gave us the occasion to meet him in person. We wish to thank Curtis Chin for accepting our offer to organize a longer interview, which was held online on July 5, 2025.

Figure 1. Curtis Chin

Figure 1. Curtis Chin

Credit: Courtesy of Curtis Chin.

Juliette Bourdin and Christelle Ha Soon-Lahaye : Your book, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant, narrates your own coming-of-age story as a young ABC—i.e., American-born Chinese—raised in Detroit, Michigan. What prompted you to write this memoir?

  • 5 For some photographs of the family restaurant, called Chung’s, in the 1970s, see Curtis Chin’s inte (...)

Curtis Chin: Actually, I had no training in writing a memoir, and I started writing this book as a personal family project. We don’t own the family restaurant anymore,5 and when my siblings started having kids, I thought it was really sad that this next generation of our family wouldn’t have any knowledge of this wonderful place that we all grew up in [see fig. 2 and 3]. So, I started writing these anecdotes just for them, something to share with them about our family’s history. And it was only after I’d been doing that for a couple of years—I had quite a few stories by then—that I thought “I’m spending a lot of time doing this, I should probably get paid for it.” [Laughs.] That’s when I decided to look for a publisher. And that was a whole other journey, because writing a book for yourself and writing a book that you plan to get published are two different standards.

Fig. 2. Grandpa Chin with Curtis, Chris and Craig in front of Chung’s

Fig. 2. Grandpa Chin with Curtis, Chris and Craig in front of Chung’s

Credit: Courtesy of Curtis Chin.

Fig. 3. Calvin, Curtis and Cindy in the back kitchen of Chung’s

Fig. 3. Calvin, Curtis and Cindy in the back kitchen of Chung’s

Credit: Courtesy of Curtis Chin.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: How did you transition from writing stories for your family to publishing the book?

C.C.: COVID happened. COVID and the George Floyd murder really changed things for me because I couldn’t do my day job, which was filming. I couldn’t go out. I couldn’t be on the road. As I was stuck in L.A. with nothing to do, I thought I should use that time and try to write this book. So, I signed up for all these online writing groups and met many fantastic writers, who gave me feedback. I also started reading more memoirs because I was still just at home. That’s how the book eventually came about.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: Let’s delve into some of the key themes of your memoir and start with the question of race. Even though you don’t use the expression “dominant society” in your book, it seems to form the background of your childhood and teenage years—i.e., being confronted with an oppressing dominant society. What are your thoughts about that?

C.C.: That’s a very interesting term, which, I suppose, is commonly used in academia. I must say that it is not in my own environment, so I’ve never reflected on this expression. My gut reaction to that term is that I don’t feel dominated by anybody. I mean, clearly, there is a power structure in the country, and I’m not included in that inner circle. But to frame it that way, to talk about a “dominant society,” seems to be leading to a victim mentality. I am not trained to think of myself as a victim. Obviously, these things exist, and I know they are challenges. But maybe I consider life through a Buddhist way of thinking, because that’s just the way life is: there are always challenges in life and obstacles to overcome, but the question is how you approach it. If you call something dominant, then in some ways it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I guess I don’t really think about such concepts because my focus has always been about my own community, how to make it the dominant narrative, and how to empower myself in my community. And I feel that I do have some power, some agency, even just language fluency. Unlike my great-great-great-grandparents, who were also confronted with racial discrimination when they first came to the United States, I speak English, so I’m equipped with more tools to push back against what you would call the dominant society. And I would rather focus on what I can do to counter that, whatever that is.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: At one point in your book, you mention the “model minority” stereotype in the United States. Interestingly, you wrote:

Back then, when I still thought some stereotypes could be good, I had no problem with my brother [Chris] perpetuating this unicorn myth. To me, it was payback; after decades of Asians being thought of as dirty and disloyal and sneaky, it was nice to hear some positive words about us in this country. It made up for some of the unfair past treatment. I also think the stereotype might have helped me in my classes, encouraging my teachers to give me the benefit of the doubt: He’s Asian. He must be smart. (Chin, 2023 123-124)

Have you changed your mind? Do you now consider that even seemingly positive stereotypes are not always good?

C.C.: I don’t think my thoughts have changed too much in this respect. Communities are all harmed to a degree, so if you get a certain good stereotype, it may open opportunities for you. Yet, in the end, any stereotype remains problematic.

The model minority stereotype is still pervasive. And with the hyper-competitive nature of America and a lot of white grievance, the stereotype that Asians are good, hardworking students is more than ever seen as a problem. That’s why Trump has recently tried to revoke the visas of Chinese students (Wong).

On a more local level, white families now tend to move out of school districts with too many Asians because Asian students are so competitive that the white kids are no longer becoming the class valedictorians, or winning the scholarships, and their families see it as a detriment to them.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: How do you personally draw the line between cultural characteristics and stereotypes?

  • 6 Between 1865 and 1869, the Central Pacific Railroad hired Chinese workers to build the western sect (...)

C.C.: Well, I do think that there’s always some germ of truth within these stereotypes. I mean, Asians are seen as hardworking, and it is a fact that I was taught to work hard. If you think about those first Chinese that came to the United States to build the railroads, they toiled and had to put up with a lot of hardship.6 For those Chinese immigrants, the mantra was: Put your head down, just work really hard, get the job done and send the money back home. At first, the non-Chinese were simply curious about it, but then they eventually saw it as a threat because white employers were choosing to hire the Chinese people—pejoratively called “Chinamen” back then—who were willing to work long hours for less money. And so came the backlash against the Chinese. That’s an example of the evolution of a stereotype. There’s a grain of truth in it, it resonates and may have repercussions.

The question then becomes: Do you allow those stereotypes to define you and force you to change how you see yourself as a reaction to that stereotype? That’s why, to me, if there’s some grain of truth within those stereotypes—and I do feel that’s the case—and I’m willing to embrace it, why shouldn’t I? Why should I go and do the opposite just to defy a certain stereotype? It is a very complex issue, though. On the one hand, we like to establish cultural differences that really set us apart and define who we are, so we’re willing to embrace these stereotypes to some extent, but on the other hand we don’t want to be handcuffed by them. I guess that’s the point.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: Your mother’s own mantra, which you heard throughout your childhood, was “Work hard. Be quiet. Obey your elders” (Chin, 2023 17). Though you claim to have followed this mantra, your memoir shows that you progressively felt the need to speak up in order to denounce racism, homophobia, etc. Was it difficult for you to reconcile the will to respect your mother’s mantra to be quiet with this need to speak up?

  • 7 Vincent Chin (1955-1982) was a Chinese American who grew up near Detroit, Michigan. In June 1982, h (...)

C.C.: That is the one I probably obey the least. Because I do feel that I work hard, and I do feel that I obey, or rather, respect my elders. The one I probably follow the least is “be quiet.” And I think it’s because of the Vincent Chin case, when I recognized that being quiet was not the way.7 And definitely not in America.

In Asian cultures, being quiet is not seen as a bad thing, because these cultures prize meditation and inward thinking. For instance, if you just sit and listen and process what is being said at a business meeting, an Asian company will see that behavior positively, because you’re part of the team, you’re listening. But in a Western context, if you’re not speaking up, not pitching ideas, and you’re seen as quiet in the meeting, people think you’re not contributing. It’s a totally different way of being. Silence in Asian culture is often seen as a very powerful attitude, because it means you’re thinking. Whereas in Western cultures, silence is the worst, and people think there’s something wrong with you. So, I have learned to adapt and understand that when I am surrounded by people with a Western upbringing, I do have to speak out. But if I’m surrounded by mostly Asian people, I’m not freaked out if I remain silent. I don’t feel the pressure to always say something. I can pause, I can think, I can ruminate, and I can come back to them a day or two later after I’ve thought about it, and it’s not a big deal. In other words, these are cultural differences that simply require code switching.

  • 8 Though Amy Chua did not invent the concept of the “tiger mother,” the uproar provoked by her book u (...)

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: Speaking of cultural characteristics, in your book you describe your mother as a “tiger mom.” Does the expression come from Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother?8 Have you read the book? And if you did, do you think it is an accurate description of Chinese mothers in the US or yet another stereotype?

C.C.: Amy Chua’s book sparked quite a heated debate when it came out! But, no, my use of the expression “tiger mom” does not come from that book. It is, indeed, a typical expression. I don’t know the origins of it, but I definitely understand the character itself, and I do think there’s truth to it. I don’t think it’s just Chinese, though, because I’ve met Indian, Japanese, Vietnamese families where the mother really controls the home. That’s just a cultural thing. That’s a dynamic.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: Do you mean that it is an Asian cultural characteristic rather than a specifically Chinese trait?

C.C.: Yes, it seems like a Pan-Asian thing. I don’t know of any other Asian culture where it’s the opposite.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: The United States was shaped by many waves of immigration, bringing many diverse backgrounds and cultures that would—or would not—eventually mix together, so that defining oneself is almost a national sport in the United States, and is also a pervasive theme in American literature. In your memoir, you define yourself as a gay American-born Chinese from the blue-collar Midwest. Would you still define yourself in the exact same way today?

C.C.: Yes, I would. But it’s important to keep in mind that these terms are not fixed, and they’re oftentimes situational. I may draw upon different aspects depending on the people I’m around. For instance, when I’m in Hollywood, I like to present myself as a Midwesterner, because there are more projects calling for a Midwestern voice. At least this was the case when I first started working. But if you asked me the term that best describes myself, I’d say I’m a Detroiter. I’m geographically a Detroiter. That’s who I feel like. And then after that, I would say working class, because these are probably the values I think about the most. And then I would say race. And finally, sexual orientation. If you asked me to rank them, that’s how I would define myself.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: What does it mean for you to define yourself as a Detroiter, beyond the geographic location of the city?

C.C.: Being an underdog. I mean, the grit of the city. Someone who takes a lot of hits but just keeps going. I feel like that defines our city. It’s a beautiful city with a strong and influential cultural history. It was a driving force in America, but it’s taken its knocks, and yet it refuses to give up. I feel like that defines me. I refuse to give up, just like Detroit refuses to give up, despite the fact that people underestimate it all the time and think of it as this awful, horrible place. I, too, refuse to believe that. So, it also means having a strong sense of pride. Being from Detroit is important to me.

You know, t-shirts are oftentimes a very good indicator of how you advertise yourself. [Laughs.] And all my t-shirts say Detroit or Michigan. They don’t say Asian. I don’t wear gay t-shirts either. All my t-shirts define me as being from Michigan.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: And yet, Chinese culture has clearly had a strong impact on your upbringing, through your parents, your grandparents, particularly through your mother, who grew up in Hong Kong. As an American-born Chinese, what is your own relationship to Chinese culture?

C.C.: Throughout my whole life, I’ve always conceived of myself as Asian American, and I’ve never felt this split between how American I am and how Chinese or Asian I am. I’ve always understood that it’s a composite, and I’ve always felt very comfortable with that identification. I’m Asian American. And I’ve actually worked very hard throughout my whole life to embrace and support that term at every level—personally, professionally, creatively, politically.

But having traveled to nine different countries on my book tour, I’ve been approached by many people from the Chinese diaspora, particularly from Chinese restaurant kids who grew up, say, in Suriname or Mauritius, and who told me that my story resonated with them very strongly. This has made me realize that I’m also part of this other community called the Chinese diaspora, which is a community I had never felt or thought about before, but that I now recognize as a really big and powerful community.

As for China per se, I’ve never felt connected to that space or that identity. I don’t speak the language, so I don’t have a strong sense of it, nor do I feel a strong pull to understand it. What is happening in China right now—beyond its impact on America and global issues—doesn’t strike a chord with me, also because I’ve spent very little time there. I’ve actually spent more time in the UK than I have in China, so I even feel more emotionally connected to the UK just because of those longer visits, and because I have more friends there. So, I don’t have that connection to China, and I don’t know if I ever will. But I definitely have a strong connection to other Chinese people who have left China.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: How would you define Asian American identity more specifically?

C.C.: The beautiful thing about the term Asian American is that it’s in flux and still being developed in a lot of ways. When we started using it during my college years, the term was still rather nebulous. But now it’s becoming a little bit more defined, 20 or 30 years later. Thirty years later! God, I’m really old! [Laughs.] There’s a better sense of what it means, though some people might still find it confusing. And that’s an exciting challenge for me as a writer, because I can infuse it with meaning and ideas. And I’ve always tried to make the Asian American community more progressive, more inclusive, more expansive, not just in terms of geographic boundaries, but as a forward-thinking, socially progressive community.

  • 9 During the Second World War, the U.S. government ordered the internment of about 120,000 Japanese A (...)

In fact, when you look at political surveys, Asian Americans always align very far to the left, particularly as far as environmental issues are concerned. Asian Americans are the biggest environmentalists. I jokingly say it’s because we recycle everything. We don’t throw out anything. We are the most environmentally pro-everything, like solar energy, wind power, electric vehicles, etc. We’re the first ones to jump into it. Even when you look at surveys of marriage equality, the first groups to come out in support of the gay community were Asian American groups. The very first non-gay civil rights organization to support marriage equality was the Japanese American Citizens League. They supported marriage equality because they themselves had been through that process of internment during World War II and they said they understood what it means to be treated as outcasts.9 Polling after polling, states like Hawaii and California, states with large Asian populations, were always the ones most supportive of these positions, even if the legislation was sometimes slower than we might have liked, because a lot of those early victories were done through the courts, and not through public opinion. But public polling showed that Asians were far ahead on these issues. To me, Asian Americans are progressive, and that’s why I’ve really tried to solidify that notion, at least in the political sphere.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: You also wrote in your book that it was easier for you to fit in your first primary school in Chinatown, because there were not only Asian kids but also both African American and white kids. This greater diversity apparently facilitated your integration with your schoolmates. Then, your family moved to the more well-off suburb of Troy, North of Detroit, where there were no black children at the time, and you were one of the very few Asian American kids in that overwhelmingly white school. You wrote: “My parents weighed their kids’ future against the present. To get a good public school education, we just had to put up with a little discrimination” (Chin, 2023 44). Was moving to Troy and accepting more discrimination worth it? Did you regret spending the rest of your childhood and youth in this much less diverse environment?

C.C.: I don’t really regret it, because I don’t know what the other life would have been. I mean, I could have been killed and murdered, so I can’t really think of that in that sense. But the larger issue of discrimination I can address, in the sense that America is a multicultural society. We are coming from different backgrounds, different cultural experiences, different philosophies; so, inevitably, you’re going to have disagreements and differences, which leads to racism sometimes. As far as I’m concerned, I’m willing to accept the possibility of facing discrimination in my life every now and then for the more important benefits of living in a multicultural society, of the opportunities that such a society offers, of meeting people who are different from you, of learning and opening up to other cultures. I’m aware that racism is part of America, as well as gender discrimination, and I don’t know if you’ll ever completely eradicate these things—I feel like they’re always going to be there. But the question is, how can you lower them? How can you reduce them so that they don’t have a debilitating effect on society the way they have now, especially in the last couple of years in America? But I understand that racial and gender discrimination is part of it. Because people don’t know each other. When you’re not raised in a certain background, you can’t expect someone with a different upbringing to know and understand them 100 percent. The question is, when you recognize that there are differences between you, how do you react to these differences? Do you see them as an opportunity to learn and grow from that person? Or do you feel that you need to be fearful and build up walls? And I think that in America lately, we have been building walls because people have been using our differences as a way to divide and conquer us.

If we can flip the narrative and remind ourselves that we used to say that America is a nation of immigrants, that we should love our neighbors, if we can get back to more compassion in a kinder way, then that is the promise of America, as a multicultural society. It’s not the one that we’re seeing right now; it’s the promise.

But maybe the truth is that this has been the reality from the beginning. Some people think that what’s happening now is new. It’s not. Just ask the Native Americans. Maybe this is the way America has always been, but we tended to put forward this belief that we were working towards something better, and that allowed us to ignore the past. We were able to excuse some of the awful things that our country may have done in the past because we felt that we were trying to get better, and we were trying to improve and learn from these mistakes. I think the last couple of years have been really hard because it’s forced us to ask ourselves: How much did we really learn from these errors in the past? Because we’re definitely repeating a lot of them now.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: The question of visibility/invisibility is expressed throughout your book in various ways, for instance in the absence of role models with whom you could identify as a child, in the lack of classes about Asian American history, in the Vincent Chin murder in 1982, which made the headlines in Chinatown, but not elsewhere, and so on and so forth. What is your own vision about this question of visibility versus invisibility in the United States? Do you think it is still a key issue nowadays? And if so, is this one of the main reasons why you decided to publish this book, beyond your initial project to tell the family history to your nephews and nieces?

C.C.: There’s no doubt that new technology has quickened the pace towards the fracturing of America. And that has allowed for different opportunities for more voices to be heard. We don’t talk about this notion of a general audience in America anymore. We used to. That used to be the big term. The question was: How do you appeal to the general audience? Nobody knows what that is anymore, because we’re all in these little silos. And so, as with everything, there’s a plus and minus to that. The plus is that more marginalized voices now have the opportunity to get their message out there. The downside to it is that we don’t have these collective moments where we felt that we were part of a larger, unified America. When I was growing up, we used to have these big events that drew us all together, such as TV shows like Dallas, or the Oscars. Now the Oscars don’t even do it anymore. The only thing that comes to this point now is the big sporting events like the Super Bowl. I think it’s good that we’ve gone through this process where we fractured a bit, because it has given more space for people of color and gay people and women to have their voices heard. The question is, as we rebuild and put these pieces together: How does that look? And I think that is what’s threatening to some people. Because we would want a more inclusive society where everybody has a voice, where everybody gets it. And some of those who have always been in control and have always had that—I guess what you’re calling the dominant society—just don’t want that. It seems that these people fear that giving more voice to people of color or women or gay people means that we want to eradicate their voice. I don’t think that’s the case. It’s not about taking over and replacing; it’s about sharing. I think the big fear you hear coming from certain corners is this so-called replacement theory—i.e., that white people in America feel like they’re being replaced. That’s certainly not a goal of mine, I like white people! [Laughs.] But I think there’s room for all of us to share and learn from each other. So, I think, that is the misunderstanding that is driving some of this, and which is exploited by some people who believe that the brown and black people just want to take over America and kick out white people. Some people have been scared into believing it. But I don’t think that’s true. It’s certainly not true.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: It’s interesting that you used the terms “replacing” and “replacement theory” because the same theory, called “le grand remplacement” in French, has spread in some corners of France, too. Going back to this question of visibility and invisibility, was it ever discussed in your family?

C.C.: Well, not really. There was a sense that we did have to work harder, though, because we don’t get second chances. Part of the reason my mom said we had to work so hard was because she didn’t think that we would get a fair shot. She understood there was discrimination, and colorism even. One of the earliest stories I remember as a kid was that my mom hated Diana Ross. She’s the only person I knew who hated Diana Ross! [Laughs.] And that was because my mom liked the other singer, who was darker and more heavy set, and she considered it was unfair that Diana, who looked whiter, got to sing lead. So, from an early age, I knew that being lighter skin was advantageous in America, that being thinner was also more advantageous in America. I guess that sort of propelled why we worked hard, because we knew that, as Asians, we had to be perfect to get the same things that other people got. The margin of error for us was much smaller.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: A little earlier, you used the term “people of color,” and on page 184 of your memoir, you mentioned that at the University of Michigan, the staff of the Office of Minority Affairs “kept referring to the Black, Latino, and Asian Americans in the room as ‘people of color’”—an expression that you thought was much better than the term “minorities.” Do you still favor the expression “people of color”?

C.C.: Well, we don’t really use that term in America anymore. We use BIPOC—meaning “Black, Indigenous, and People of color”—which I personally have a problem with, because it basically establishes a rank order. I think this new term is a response amongst black people—black activists, I should say—saying they’ve had it worst. And then the indigenous people, the natives, have it second worst. And then, Latinos and Asians have it least. They seem to want to separate it out, because POC—i.e., People of color—means we’re all equal, all under the same umbrella, whereas this term BIPOC puts a hierarchy to it, and I find that annoying.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: What about the term “minority”? You don’t seem to like it either, but don’t you think that it better describes a social and political reality?

C.C.: Sometimes, yes. Actually, these days I use “minority” more than I use POC, because I just don’t hear people saying it anymore, and because, as I just said, I don’t like the term BIPOC. So, I don’t really know. But to be honest with you, I don’t use these terms as much as you guys might think I do. I’m not an academic, I don’t really hang out in these circles and don’t engage in these discussions that much. In fact, I have to learn these terms by hanging out with you guys. [Laughs.]

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: In your memoir, there are still some unanswered questions, such as your coming out to your parents, which is not described at all. Could you tell us why you decided to leave that part unsaid? There is also an underlying motif of fading in the text. For instance, your grandmother Yingying is hardly ever mentioned after her stroke, nor do we know what happened to the restaurant and to your relatives. Was it intentional?

C.C.: I don’t mention my coming out because the book is chronological, and I didn’t come out to my parents until I was 26 in real life. So, it’s not in the book, but I was not trying to hide anything. Also, I do believe that there’s only one person that really matters in the coming out process, and that’s yourself, because throughout your whole life, you will continue to always have to come out to people. It’s a journey. It’s something that you just do, whether it’s your family or your friends or your coworkers or your neighbors, you just have to continually do that. So, all that mattered was that I came out to myself and that there was no question I was going to live the life of a gay man. To me, that’s the most important one.

  • 10 Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) is mostly famous for his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, first pub (...)

The one thing I do talk about is the coming out process itself. In Western literature, or Western society, the coming out experience has often been presented as this heroic, epic journey, in the Joseph Campbell vein10—i.e., you’ve got this issue, you’ve got to fight over it, and you come out victorious after battling all these demons, and so on and forth. As an Asian American in a culture that’s more community-oriented, I don’t approach it in the same way, because I think that sometimes the decision that we make is much more focused on the preservation of the family unit and community, which play more important roles. So, when I was faced with this idea of whether or not to come out, once I had accepted the fact that I was gay, I had to weigh the options of how this would impact my family. I wasn’t just focused on how that would make me feel to come out. I had to think about my family and the impact it would have. And at the time I knew that my family was already under a lot of stress because of the business, working downtown, and having six kids. Plus, back then, there was also the fear of AIDS. Anytime a gay person came out, it was almost like a death sentence, they’d be dead within six months or a year. I didn’t want to add that burden to my parents. So, to me, not coming out to my parents was actually a more heroic thing, a self-sacrifice thing where I put it aside. I was never afraid that my parents were going to kick me out or not support me because my parents love me. They’ve always told me so. I never feared that. But me not coming out, I think really was an act of love, and I stand by that. It just wasn’t the right time.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: And yet, you did say at various times in your book that your greatest fear was that your parents would not accept you as a gay person. For instance, on page 82, you wrote: “Still, my greatest fear about being outed was that I might be banished from my own family.” So, it was an issue. Retrospectively, you know that your parents had no problem with it, but you did express in your memoir that, as a kid and as a teenager, you feared that maybe they would not accept it.

C.C.: Definitely when you’re in your teen years, when you’re 12 or 13 or 14, yes, there’s the fear then, particularly back in that era. But I think that by the time I got to college, and I was working and had a full-time job and I was accepting who I was, I didn’t have any fear at that point. And maybe I should have written a little bit more clearly that a lot of those fears early on were generated by society. Society told me I should be afraid.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: You said that you are currently writing a sequel. Did you already have in mind the idea of a second book when you wrote this memoir?

C.C.: No, I didn’t even have an idea of the first book! [Laughs.] And I never took a memoir writing class or anything like that. But now that I’ve done it, and I’ve seen the response to it, and the people that have come up to me and said that the book is helpful to them, that sort of got me thinking that maybe I should write a second one.

So, yes, I’m currently working on my second memoir, and it’s set in 2005. At the time, I was writing for the Disney Channel in Los Angeles. And I got this terrible phone call that my parents were in a car accident back home in Detroit. Sadly, my dad passed away and my mom was severely injured. My brother Chris, the golden child, who is now living as a doctor in Northern California, immediately whisked my mom off to the Bay Area to help her recuperate. By the end of that first week, all my other siblings decided they were also going to move to California. And I was left behind in Detroit trying to decide: Do I go back to Hollywood and pursue this TV writing thing, which wasn’t the easiest thing for Asian Americans back then? Or do I stay in Detroit and take over this fabulous Chinese restaurant that my great-grandfather founded? That book is called Leftovers, and I’m writing it because I think it’ll be good for me and for other people to talk about some of these themes, such as the grieving process, but also the challenges of being Asian in Hollywood, as well as the more general question of family responsibility and family legacy. I think that a lot of kids who grew up in family businesses, particularly in Asian restaurants, must eventually face the big issue of successorship. Many parents don’t want their children to continue on in the family business. That is something that I’ll be addressing, this idea of how you hold on to your family’s legacy and promote it and be honorable to it, while at the same time being faithful to yourself and what you want to do.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: A little earlier, you mentioned the coming-of-age stories in Western literature. Have you been inspired by other memoirs when you wrote your own?

  • 11 Tara Westover. Educated: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 2018.
  • 12 J.R. Moehringer. The Tender Bar: A Memoir. New York: Hyperion, 2005.

C.C.: I read a dozen memoirs or so. But there were two that I read multiple times. One was Educated by Tara Westover, who tells her story about being raised in a family of survivalists in Idaho and focuses on the question of getting an education.11 The second memoir was J. R. Moehringer’s Tender Bar, which narrates his growing up in his uncle’s bar in Long Island.12 Like my own book, that’s a family business story. I thought both were really good.

For my own memoir, I wanted to write a book that would interest readers beyond the Asian American community, a book that could cross over and appeal to a wider audience. And I feel that I have succeeded just based off of the results of the book, the number of copies we’ve sold and the number of people that brought me in. To reach that goal, part of my strategy was to make the city of Detroit really prominent. A key character, really. And I deliberately wanted to weave the Asian American story into the larger narrative of what was happening in the city at the time, to bring out this connection that some people might not have seen otherwise. So, many white Detroiters who picked up the book thinking they’d just learn about this Chinese family in Detroit were surprised to learn something about themselves, too. A conscious effort on my part was to make sure that the history of Asian Americans, or in this case, Chinese Americans, is specifically understood by the readers, whoever they are. I thought I had to make it easier for non-Asians to understand that this is a deeply American story, and not do it in a subtle way, but in a very deliberate way of connecting the dots for them.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: Could you tell us a bit more about the experience of writing a memoir?

C.C.: It was fun! I got to connect more with my mom because I would call her all the time. I think it’s a very good undertaking for people who are looking to connect with their family, even if they don’t plan to publish it. The older generation loves it when you ask them about their lives. And if that gives you an opportunity to open up a conversation with someone in your family you haven’t been talking to, then I would say go for it. I mean, hopefully it’s not bringing up bad memories! [Laughs.] In my case, it wasn’t.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: Could you share your thoughts on the difficulties a writer may face when writing about their own life?

C.C.: To be honest, I didn’t have any difficulties because I felt like I was writing about a different person. I mean, that was 30 or 40 years ago. I’m a different person. So, if I can’t look back and laugh at myself and even present the less than perfect parts of myself, then it shows that I haven’t really grown, or I haven’t recognized it. One of the compliments I’ve gotten for the book is that I don’t present myself as this perfect person; maybe in other memoirs they do, or they’re more neutral. I actually wrote about the stupid things I did. But again, hopefully I don’t make those same mistakes. I mean, I’m not a Republican anymore! [Laughs.]

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: Speaking of which, as a former member of the Republican Party, how do you feel about the GOP today?

C.C.: Well, it’s totally not the party that I was part of. And I’m really sad for what they’ve done to America, or the road they’ve taken. What I’ve found the most shocking is how easily so many pillars of democracy we always thought would be there to safeguard have fallen to a dictator wannabe. This is just really, really quite sad for me. But, you know, I’ve always understood that America is a work in progress, that we have demons that we must excise, and these things are not easy. And it’s unfortunate that we are taking steps back from the progress that we’ve made. But I firmly believe that we still have the opportunity to fulfill the promise of America. This game is not over yet.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: As a gay Chinese American or Asian American, how is the return of Donald Trump to the White House affecting your life?

C.C.: Trump appeals to the worst in us. He keeps bringing division and hate, consistently writing off certain states and people, and that’s just really awful. And what’s awful, too, is to be traveling around the world and seeing all these friends, globally, who are confused by what’s going on in America. And I feel that where it has affected me the most is that, when I travel abroad I have to remind people that we still have good people in America, people who still believe in America being a force for good.

More specifically as a writer, I’ve been obviously affected because of the book bans and attacks on diversity. For instance, my book won the Great Michigan Read, which is a prestigious program given by the state. They only choose one book every two years. And as part of that, they were supposed to buy 6,000 copies of my book and give away free copies to every school and library in the state, which was really important to me, because as a kid that grew up not seeing myself in the classrooms or in the library, I felt that it is a great opportunity to show a working class Asian American from Detroit. But now that’s in jeopardy because of Trump. I don’t know if they’re going to go through with that. They’re still going to do some of the touring part, but I was supposed to give the opening to the National Humanities Conference, which is a big conference gathering all the humanities departments in every state; unfortunately, the entire event got canceled.

And even now, as we’ll be trying to sell my next book, there’s obviously this fear that the amount that they’re going to offer might be reduced because they will have to calculate that libraries and other places may not order as many diverse books as they used to because of the backlash. So, I don’t know. There’s both a personal fear and a larger fear of what’s happening to our society. And I think that marriage equality will probably be ended, so gay marriage will go back to the States. I’m a pretty optimistic guy, but I will admit that sometimes it’s hard.

J.B. and C.H.S.L.: The difficulty in promoting your book in the United States eventually led you to launch a rather unexpected European book tour. How was this experience for you?

C.C.: It was great! I met so many nice people. That’s been such a great bonus, a giant plus. And I feel like I have friends and people that I can continue connecting with because we care about the same issues. So, that’s been good for me.

  • 13 Curtis Chin and Christelle Ha Soon-Lahaye both participated in the conference dedicated to the repr (...)

And I got to see parts of the world, including Lyon and Saint-Étienne13 at the end, and places I probably never would have gone to. So that’s all been really good. The only downside is the financial aspect, because I didn’t make money that month, whereas normally in America that would be my big month for the year with many bookings and events. Fortunately, I did have income from a film I was making for PBS, so I was able to do this European book tour. Without it, I don’t know what I would have done.

But I do hope to come back. So, you know, you guys haven’t gotten rid of me yet! [Laughs.]

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Bibliographie

BAETENS, Melody. “New Memoir Tells Tales of Family, Identity and Growing Up in Detroit’s Cass Corridor.” The Detroit News, October 11, 2023. eu.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/dining/2023/10/11/memoir-tells-tales-of-family-identity-detroits-cass-corridor-curtis-chin-chungs-chinese-restauramt/71120872007/. Accessed August 29, 2025. 

CAMPBELL, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York: Pantheon Books, 1949.

CHIN, Curtis, “Detroit’s Chinatown and Gayborhood Felt Like Two Separate Worlds. Then They Collided,” Bon Appetit Magazine, June 22, 2022. bonappetit.com/story/detroit-chinatown-pride. Accessed August 29, 2025.

CHIN, Curtis. Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2023.

CHUA, Amy. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. New York: Penguin Books, 2011.

Dear Corky. Dir. Curtis Chin. PBS, “American Masters Shorts,” 2024, 16 minutes. pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/dear-corky/32905/. Accessed August 29, 2025.

MOEHRINGER, J.R. The Tender Bar: A Memoir. New York: Hyperion, 2005.

TAKAKI, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. 1989. New York: Back Bay Books / Little, brown and company, 1998, updated and revised edition.

TICHIT, Jonathan, and Hugo ANDRAUD. “‘Triomphe, chute et renaissance: les représentations de la ville de Détroit (Michigan) et leurs sous-textes idéologiques, politiques et éthiques,’ colloque international, ECLLA, Université Jean Monnet, Saint-Etienne, 11, 12 et 13 juin 2025.” Miranda, 32 | 2025. URL: journals.openedition.org/miranda/70896. Accessed October 31, 2025. DOI: doi.org/10.4000/14z2u.

Vincent Who? Dir. Tony Lam. Asian Pacific Americans for Progress, 2009, 40 minutes. https://www.vincentwhofilm.com/. Accessed August 30, 2025.

Warren King: King of Cardboard. Dir. Curtis Chin. PBS, “American Masters Shorts,” 2025, 16 minutes.

WESTOVER, Tara. Educated: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 2018.

Who Killed Vincent Chin? Dir. Renee Tajima, and Christine Choy. PBS, 1989, 87 minutes.

WONG, Edward. “U.S. Will ‘Aggressively’ Revoke Visas of Chinese Students, Rubio Says.” The New York Times, May 28, 2025. nytimes.com/2025/05/28/us/politics/china-student-visas-revoke.html?searchResultPosition=2. Accessed August 17, 2025.

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Notes

1 Curtis Chin, “Detroit’s Chinatown and Gayborhood Felt Like Two Separate Worlds. Then They Collided,” Bon Appetit Magazine, June 22, 2022, bonappetit.com/story/detroit-chinatown-pride (accessed August 29, 2025).

2 For more information, see the page dedicated to the documentary on the PBS website, pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/dear-corky/32905/ (accessed August 29, 2025).

3 See Warren King’s personal website: wrnking.com/.

4 Curtis Chin, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir, New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2023.

5 For some photographs of the family restaurant, called Chung’s, in the 1970s, see Curtis Chin’s interview with Melody Baetens, “New Memoir Tells Tales of Family, Identity and Growing Up in Detroit’s Cass Corridor,” The Detroit News, October 11, 2023, eu.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/dining/2023/10/11/memoir-tells-tales-of-family-identity-detroits-cass-corridor-curtis-chin-chungs-chinese-restauramt/71120872007/ (accessed August 29, 2025).

6 Between 1865 and 1869, the Central Pacific Railroad hired Chinese workers to build the western section of the transcontinental railroad. The Chinese soon represented 90% of the workforce to carry out extremely difficult and dangerous tasks through the Sierra Nevada. See the classic study by Ronald Takaki (84-87).

7 Vincent Chin (1955-1982) was a Chinese American who grew up near Detroit, Michigan. In June 1982, he was fatally assaulted by two white men who were resentful of Japanese competition in the auto industry. See the documentary, initially released in 1987, by Renee Tajima and Christine Choy, Who Killed Vincent Chin?, PBS, 1989, 87 minutes. Curtis Chin himself wrote and produced a documentary dedicated to the Vincent Chin murder, Vincent Who? directed by Tony Lam (2009). See the official website: vincentwhofilm.com/.

8 Though Amy Chua did not invent the concept of the “tiger mother,” the uproar provoked by her book undeniably contributed to spread the notion. See Amy Chua. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. New York: Penguin Books, 2011. The book was also translated in French: Amy Chua. L'Hymne de bataille de la mère Tigre. Translated from English by Juliette Bourdin. Paris: Gallimard, 2011.

9 During the Second World War, the U.S. government ordered the internment of about 120,000 Japanese Americans in 10 relocation camps mostly built in the desertic areas in the West of the United States. See Takaki (379-405).

10 Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) is mostly famous for his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, first published in 1949, in which he offered a comparative analysis of the mythology around the journey of the archetypal hero (see Campbell).

11 Tara Westover. Educated: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 2018.

12 J.R. Moehringer. The Tender Bar: A Memoir. New York: Hyperion, 2005.

13 Curtis Chin and Christelle Ha Soon-Lahaye both participated in the conference dedicated to the representations of Detroit, organized by Vincent Jaunas and held at Jean Monnet University in Saint-Étienne in June 2025. See the detailed report on the conference by Jonathan Tichit and Hugo Andraud, “‘Triomphe, chute et renaissance : les représentations de la ville de Détroit (Michigan) et leurs sous-textes idéologiques, politiques et éthiques,’ colloque international, ECLLA, Université Jean Monnet, Saint-Étienne, 11, 12 et 13 juin 2025.” Miranda, 32 | 2025. DOI: doi.org/10.4000/14z2u.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Figure 1. Curtis Chin
Légende Credit: Courtesy of Curtis Chin.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/docannexe/image/27929/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 80k
Titre Fig. 2. Grandpa Chin with Curtis, Chris and Craig in front of Chung’s
Légende Credit: Courtesy of Curtis Chin.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/docannexe/image/27929/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 344k
Titre Fig. 3. Calvin, Curtis and Cindy in the back kitchen of Chung’s
Légende Credit: Courtesy of Curtis Chin.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/docannexe/image/27929/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 381k
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Référence électronique

Juliette Bourdin, Christelle Ha Soon-Lahaye et Curtis Chin, « “Flipping the Narrative”: An Interview with Curtis Chin »Transatlantica [En ligne], 2 | 2025, mis en ligne le 01 décembre 2025, consulté le 16 février 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/27929 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/15i2s

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Auteurs

Juliette Bourdin

Christelle Ha Soon-Lahaye

Curtis Chin

UR TransCrit, Université Paris 8ERIAC, UR 4705, Université de Rouen Normandie

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