Filmmaker Curtis Chin, author of “Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir,” will present the 2025 Asian Heritage Lecture at Hope College on Tuesday, April 8, at 3:30 p.m. in the Concert Hall of the Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
The doors will open at 3:15 p.m. There will also be an opportunity for the audience to participate in a question-and-answer panel discussion and a book signing with the author following the presentation.
The annual lecture series seeks to enhance awareness of the Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AANHPI) community. Chin’s memoir about coming of age and coming out traces the author’s journey through 1980s Detroit as he navigated rising xenophobia, the AIDS epidemic and the Reagan Revolution to find his voice as a writer and activist — all set against the backdrop of his family’s popular Chinese restaurant. The successful book has been featured in many news articles, including in the Los Angeles Times.
A co-founder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York City, Curtis Chin served as the non-profit’s first executive director. He went on to write for network and cable television before transitioning to social-justice documentaries. Chin has screened his films at more than 600 venues in 16 countries.
He has written for CNN, Bon Appetit, the Detroit Free Press and the Emancipator/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.
“Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant” was published by Little, Brown in Fall 2023. His essay in Bon Appetit was selected for Best Food Writing in America 2023, and he just produced an episode of America’s Test Kitchen’s podcast, Proof.
The lecture is being presented by the college’s Center for Diversity and Inclusion in collaboration with the Asian Student Union, Prism, and the Office of Culture and Inclusive Excellence.
To inquire about accessibility or if you need accommodations to fully participate in the event, please email accommodations@hope.edu. Updates related to events are posted when available at hope.edu/calendar in the individual listings.
The Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts is located at 221 Columbia Ave., between Ninth and 10th streets.