First of all, I haven’t forgotten the fact that 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of Soul Sides. I obviously don’t post here very often at all — it’s been a year and a half since my past post — but I’m not ready to sunset the site just yet (even though, all said, I probably should!) I have something special planned for folks to mark that 20th anniversary, which I’ll share by Thanksgiving or so.
I did want to let folks know one reason why I haven’t posted/written/recorded much of anything for the past few years: I’ve been curating a museum exhibition + writing the companion book to go with it. The exhibition is Cruising J-Town: Behind the Wheel of the Nikkei Community and it focuses on the social history of Japanese American car culture in Southern California, from the 1910s through present. Here’s our teaser trailer from this summer:
This exhbition has very little to do with music and I’m also not a “car person” by any stretch of the imagination but this project — which has taken over my life for the past three years — is very much aligned with my interests in community cultural histories and it’s been long, long, long overdue for there to be a focus on how Asian Americans have shaped and been shaped by the world of cars/trucks. I couldn’t be more proud (and exhausted) from working on this. The show will be at the Mullin Gallery at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, from July 31 – Nov 12, 2025. The book, to be published by Angel City Press, should also debut by July 31, 2025 as well.
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