How a Chinese restaurant in Detroit taught a queer LA writer everything he knows
LOS ANGELES -- It was the 1980s, and Detroit was grappling with civil unrest, the AIDS crisis, crack cocaine and sky-high racial tensions. Curtis Chin was only a child when a close family friend, Vincent Chin, was murdered by racist autoworkers. By the time Chin turned 18, the violence of his hometown had ended the lives of five people he knew.
But Chin's family restaurant, Chung's, was an oasis on Cass Corridor where everyone was welcome to feast on American Chinese food: drug dealers, sex workers, gay men, touring Broadway performers, even Detroit's first Black mayor. At its peak, Chung's was selling 4,000 egg rolls a week.
"We were the oldest surviving Chinese." His parents, who didn't graduate college, encouraged Chin and his siblings to learn from everyone who walked through their doors. "Anytime my dad met someone who had a cool career … he'd call all six of us over and we'd run over and barrage [them] with all these questions."
