“As people of color, our stories are not told fully all the time, so we are oftentimes seen as the perpetrator of crime,” writer and filmmaker Curtis Chin said. “We don’t get the automatic privilege of compassion.”
On Oct. 16, Scripps Presents hosted Chin to speak about his creative journey. He was interviewed by Anne Harley, a professor of music at Scripps College, in Balch Auditorium.
Chin is the co-founder of the Asian American Writer’s Workshop in New York, which encourages Asian American creative culture by producing magazines, teaching emerging writers and organizing events. Additionally, he is the author of the memoir “Everything I Learned I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant” and the producer of films like “Dear Corky” and “Vincent Who?”
From the beginning of the talk, Chin emphasized how his creative life was entirely shaped by the murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit, Michigan. This influence is prevalent throughout his body of work.
Vincent Chin was a Chinese American celebrating his upcoming wedding in Highland Park, Michigan, when he was attacked and murdered in a racially motivated assault. The attackers were only fined and given three years of probation.
Curtis Chin, who was 14 at the time of the murder, spoke about how witnessing the lack of compassion for Asian Americans in the legal system inspired him to promote storytelling in his community.
His memoir, from which he read sections throughout the event, began as a collection of comedic family stories, eventually transforming into a reckoning of his intersecting racial and religious identities. Chin started writing the book in 2020 when the pandemic hit, and he was suddenly unable to do his day job as a filmmaker.
“What can I do so I don’t have to talk to my husband? I can write a book. Given everything that was going on, especially George Floyd, I shifted the focus to talk more about racial identity,” Chin said. “What does it mean to grow up Asian in a black and white world? What does it mean to be Buddhist in a Judeo-Christian world?”
The audience held on to Chin’s every word, periodically laughing and applauding after readings. His passion for his family’s story came through in his theatrical and compelling manner of speaking. Hale Hu PZ ’27 found the interspersed readings from sections of his book to be intriguing, especially when they discussed Chin’s family history.
“His family history and his story was very touching, especially in how that is connected to the book,” Hu said.
Chin’s discussion of his memoir often overlapped with the narrative of his creative journey. He described his improbable and nontraditional path to obtaining a college education, citing his mother as a key motivating factor. As she wasn’t able to complete her high school education, she was passionate about the power of higher education to better the lives of her children.
To demonstrate his respect for her, despite his deep reservations about enrolling in college, Chin chose to apply to only one school, the University of Michigan. He ended up choosing the creative writing major partially out of convenience: Throughout college, he was working full-time at his family’s restaurant and could only take night classes, and writing classes were mostly offered in the evenings.
”I was not planning on going to college because it was a really tough time to be growing up and be gay [in the 1980s]. Given [the violence], I did not think I had a long time to live,” Chin said. “I rationalized, what would be me giving up four years of my life for a woman who’s given up her whole life for me.”
In addition to his mother’s influence, Chin emphasized the impact that his family’s Chinese restaurant has had on his professional creative career — a fact he pays homage to in the title of his memoir.
Chin’s family has run their restaurant in Detroit, Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, for over 65 years. As he was writing his book, Chin spent a lot of time reflecting on his love of Chinese restaurants, and how he sees them as one of the few places in this country where people from diverse backgrounds can really come together and connect.
“The way I pitched the book to my agent was ‘come for the egg rolls but stay for the talk on racism,’” Chin said. “Our country is dealing with these really important issues, but we’ve got to find a way to talk about them and feel safe. In that sense, I like to say that Chinese restaurants are going to save America because it’s what brings us together.”
Chin highlighted his organisation, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, as his effort to build on the environment of his childhood, and continue creating community and encouraging people of color to tell their stories.
Selene Ye SC ’27, an attendee of the event, particularly appreciated Chin’s view that writing should not be a solitary pursuit.
“One thing that I took away was the importance of writing as a form of finding community and finding solidarity, and building family when maybe you are afraid that your family will accept you,” Ye said.