Cruising J-Town: Japanese American Car Culture in Los Angeles

By Oliver Wang. 

The book is a companion to the JANM on the Go exhibition of the same name at the Peter and Merle Mullin Gallery at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, CA, July 31-November 12, 2025. The exhibition and book explore 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.

Interviews and oral histories chronicle the people and stories behind how Japanese Americans have played vital roles in countless car scenes throughout the region. Cruising J-Town is filled with vintage and contemporary photographs, drawings and ephemera that bring the story to life.

Hardbound: 308 pp.

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