Oliver Wang, a sociology professor and author at Cal State Long Beach, spent years griping to his friends about the lack of Asian American representation in Southern California’s car history .

“I was talking to an old friend,” Wang began during a recent Zoom interview. “And he said to me, ‘Oliver, you’ve been complaining that there’s no book about Asian Americans in cars for 20 years. You literally make your living as both a writer and a scholar, studying and writing about Asian Americans and pop culture, so if you feel like someone should go out and do this project, why don’t you go out and do it then?’”

“So that was really the impetus for me,” Wang said.

The quip from Wang’s buddy resulted in his recent book, “Cruising J-Town: Japanese American Car Culture in Los Angeles,” out now b

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