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Cruising Nisei
If you arrived after dark to the Nisei Week carnival back in the 1980s, you likely would have encountered the following scene: a seemingly endless parade of cars, trucks, and motorcycles circling the streets, blaring music, revving engines, burning rubber. Crowds of Nikkei youth would have spilled off the sidewalks and street curbs, watching, gawking. They weren’t there for the carnival but for the side show that had become a main event: the Nisei Week cruise.
“The cruise” grew out of a much larger, older tradition across America where groups of car owners would spif up the…
