Anita Chen
Behind the Fried Rice Curtain, Part 1
Personal histories from Southern Chinese American restaurant families
![](https://hyphenmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/magazine_issue_columns/public/magazine/issue-26-south/behind-fried-rice-curtain-part-1/dsc00092.jpg?itok=YWzTGpXY)
I grew up in my parents’ Chinese restaurant in Abbeville, SC. We were the only Asian Americans in a town of not quite 6,000 that was known as the “birthplace and the deathbed of the Confederacy.”