Coming Of Age As A Chinese Restaurant Kid
50 min
Curtis Chin grew up inside Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine. His great-grandfather first opened the Detroit restaurant in 1940, and in the 1970s and ‘80s Chung’s was the backdrop for many of Curtis’s formative lessons about race, identity and belonging.He talks to Anita about his experience learning how to code-switch as an Asian American and gay kid in a Black and white city — and how serving and observing customers in the restaurant helped him find his own way as a writer, filmmaker and activist. Meet the guest: - Curtis Chin is the author of “Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant” Read the transcript Follow Embodied on Instagram Leave a message for Embodied Please note: This episode originally published December 18, 2025. Updates: The sequel to Curtis Chin's memoir is coming out in Spring 2028. It is called, "For Here or To Go," and his latest film for PBS is available on YouTube.
