Great Michigan Read

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Great Michigan Read 2024-25
Everything I Learned, I Learned In A Chinese Restaurant
by Curtis Chin

One title, one state, thousands engaged in literary discussion.
Presented by the Michigan Humanities Council.
​This “vivid, moving, funny, and heartfelt” memoir tells the story of Curtis Chin’s time growing up as a gay Chinese American kid in 1980’s Detroit (Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers).
Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, 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. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city’s spiraling misfortunes; and where—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.
 
Michigan Humanities’ Great Michigan Read creates a statewide discussion around the humanities themes of a selected book. Through partnerships with libraries, schools, book clubs, and a wide range of other non-profit organizations, the Great Michigan Read facilitates statewide reading and programs to bridge communities around a common conversation.
 
Copies available At BPL​