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Wicked director Jon M. Chu tells PEOPLE about his plans to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
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The commemorative month is observed throughout May in the United States
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He is looking forward to bringing his five kids to his family’s Chinese restaurant in Los Altos, Calif.
Jon M. Chu is eager to share his family traditions with his kids.
The filmmaker, 45, opens up to PEOPLE in an exclusive interview about how he is celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which is observed throughout May in the United States. This year, he is excited to bring his five kids, whom he shares with wife Kristin Hodge, along for the festivities.
“I usually go home to my family,” he says, referring to his upbringing in Los Altos, Calif., which is just miles away from where he was born in Palo Alto. “They have a Chinese restaurant that’s been there for 55 years, and they do a whole dinner and all this stuff.”
Chu continues, “So, I’m going to make it out there and bring my kids. They do not get enough Chinese food out here in L.A.”
The Wicked director and Hodge are parents to Willow, 7, Jonathan Heights, 5, Ruby, 3, Iggy, 2, and Stevie Sky, 6 months.
Chu, whose father Lawrence Chu owns the celebrity-favorite Chinese restaurant Chef Chu’s, adds that his oldest has recently developed an interest in cooking. Therefore, he might ask his father to take them behind the scenes to see the kitchen in action.
“We used to fold wontons when we were growing up with my grandma,” he says when asked if there’s a specific dish he is most excited to share with his kids. “I think that’s something they would really love. We dip [the wonton wrapper] in the water and fold it.”
Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures
Jon M. Chu (center) with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Granda on the set of ‘Wicked’.
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As for what his Asian American identity means to him, Chu admits that he has “gone through a journey” toward acceptance. The director was born to his mother, Ruth Chu, from Taiwan, and his father, who is from China. His journey began with growing up in the aforementioned Chinese restaurant and the values his parents bestowed on him — starting with their approach to customer service.
“Because I grew up in a Chinese restaurant, it was a part of my life,” he explains. “My parents always called us ambassadors in the Silicon Valley. They started in 1969, so there weren’t a ton of Chinese families there yet. They always told us that when people came in, no matter how they treated them, that they needed to be kind and needed to open their eyes, because we may be the first Chinese family they have ever met.”
The director adds that his parents wanted their customers to leave “with their bellies full and their hearts full as well, so, hopefully, next time they meet a Chinese family, they’ll treat them with more respect or may not make assumptions that they thought before.”
Chu says that his parents also wanted him and his four siblings to “be as immersed in American culture as possible.”
“They put us in classes,” he says. “I took tap dance for 12 years. We watched movies, TV, watched musicals, ballets and operas. They really wanted us to not feel out of place. I was very ‘Americanized’ my whole life.”
Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty
Jon M. Chu at the 30th Annual Critics Choice Awards on Feb. 7, 2025 in Santa Monica, Calif.
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His upbringing led him to feel like he had “two very different parts of my life.”
As Chu ventured into Hollywood, he felt discouraged by the lack of Asian representation around him. “When I got into Hollywood, because there weren’t a lot of Asians in the business, I wanted to be seen as just a filmmaker, not an Asian filmmaker. The more I blended in, the better. I did that for many years in my movies,” he says.
But Chu eventually reached a turning point, which he mainly credits to seeing other Asian American people in media, specifically on YouTube. “I realized how amazing and how lucky we are to have a whole other culture in us, and in our brains and in our hearts,” he says. “And that it was actually super valuable to share.”
The filmmaker had early success directing films like 2008’s Step Up 2: The Streets and a pair of Justin Bieber documentaries. However, he had his breakthrough with 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians, based on the 2013 novel by Kevin Kwan.
From there, the rest is history.
“Now I’m so proud to be Asian American,” Chu says. “It’s actually a badge of honor, and I’m so excited now that I have kids to show them a different story about how we should be, that we have the opportunity to also be ambassadors to the world, but also that we have value in the cultures that we come from. That actually is going to better the world in so many ways.”
Read the original article on People
