Race Queen of Little Tokyo

June 28, 2021 • Chiharu Cohen

I.  May Tomita was embarrassed. Her dad is a Kibei gardener and would always pick her up in his beat up truck at Carson High School, with the lawnmower, edger and other dirty garden tools still in the truck bed. Compared to the Cadillacs and Buicks that parents drive to pick up their kids, her dad’s Ford Courier was a pile of heap that even junkyards would reject. She’d ignore the truck, walk past her father, as he drives alongside …