A visual history of Japanese American car culture in Los Angeles, from gardeners’ trucks and family sedans to hot rods and race cars. Cruising J-Town: Japanese American Car Culture in Los Angeles explores how generations of Japanese Americans in Southern California shaped, and were shaped by, local automobile cultures and industries: from desert lakebeds to concrete speedways, gas stations to design centers, souped-up import tuners to humble gardening trucks. Along the way, cars and trucks became literal and figurative vehicles for Japanese American self-expression, social mobility, community identity, and much more. Cruising J-Town is driven to explore how these diverse relationships between people and the world of cars have steered the Nikkei community’s American stories across the generations. 276 Pages History / United States / State & Local / West (AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY) Social Science / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / American / Asian American & Pacific Islander