ARTISTS
Cruising J-Town: Behind the Wheel of the Nikkei Community
Car culture has long been synonymous with Southern California. What we drive for work and play have been literal and symbolic vehicles of personal expression, community identity, and social mobility. This has been especially true for the Southland鈥檚 Japanese American community, starting back over one hundred years ago and continuing through today.
Cruising J-Town: Behind the Wheel of the Nikkei Community tells the stories of influential figures and everyday car lovers alike who have played vital roles in countless car scenes鈥攆rom hot rods and lowriders to the import craze and drift racing. Curated by cultural scholar and writer, Dr. Oliver Wang, this exhibition features five classic cars: George Nakamura鈥檚 1940s 鈥淢eteor鈥� hot rod; Brian Omatsu鈥檚 custom 1951 Mercury coupe known as the 鈥淧urple Reign鈥�; a 1956 Ford F100 pickup truck owned by Kirk Shimazu; Tod Kaneko鈥檚 1973 Datsun 510, one of the models that launched the import car craze; and a hot pink 1989 Nissan 240SX from professional drift racing driver Nadine Sachiko Toyoda-Hsu鈥檚 days with the Drifting Pretty team.
Historic Los Angeles locations such as the original Ascot Speedway in South Los Angeles; F&K Garage in Little Tokyo; sites of the Mojave dry lake racing scene; Lion鈥檚 Drag Strip; the Irwindale Speedway; and classic service stations are revisited through photographs and memorabilia. Cruising J-Town also looks at the central role that cars and trucks played in the working lives of Japanese Americans. Nikkei gardeners鈥� prominence in the local economy was made possible by their trucks, and fish truck drivers, or sakanaya, brought fresh fish and hard-to-find Japanese foods to the postwar suburbs six days a week.
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Car culture has long been synonymous with Southern California. What we drive for work and play have been literal and symbolic vehicles of personal expression, community identity, and social mobility. This has been especially true for the Southland鈥檚 Japanese American community, starting back over one hundred years ago and continuing through today.
Cruising J-Town: Behind the Wheel of the Nikkei Community tells the stories of influential figures and everyday car lovers alike who have played vital roles in countless car scenes鈥攆rom hot rods and lowriders to the import craze and drift racing. Curated by cultural scholar and writer, Dr. Oliver Wang, this exhibition features five classic cars: George Nakamura鈥檚 1940s 鈥淢eteor鈥� hot rod; Brian Omatsu鈥檚 custom 1951 Mercury coupe known as the 鈥淧urple Reign鈥�; a 1956 Ford F100 pickup truck owned by Kirk Shimazu; Tod Kaneko鈥檚 1973 Datsun 510, one of the models that launched the import car craze; and a hot pink 1989 Nissan 240SX from professional drift racing driver Nadine Sachiko Toyoda-Hsu鈥檚 days with the Drifting Pretty team.
Historic Los Angeles locations such as the original Ascot Speedway in South Los Angeles; F&K Garage in Little Tokyo; sites of the Mojave dry lake racing scene; Lion鈥檚 Drag Strip; the Irwindale Speedway; and classic service stations are revisited through photographs and memorabilia. Cruising J-Town also looks at the central role that cars and trucks played in the working lives of Japanese Americans. Nikkei gardeners鈥� prominence in the local economy was made possible by their trucks, and fish truck drivers, or sakanaya, brought fresh fish and hard-to-find Japanese foods to the postwar suburbs six days a week.
