Oct. 25 Program to Explore How Fish Trucks Brought Japanese Ingredients to SoCal

Editors please note: JANM’s Pavilion is closed for renovation; programs will continue on the JANM campus and at other locations at janm.org/OnTheGo. 

LOS ANGELES, CA – Japanese foods and ingredients are commonplace in Southern California markets today, but sixty years ago, ingredients were hard to come by. Archivist and writer Chelsea Shi-Chao Liu will reveal the history of the Nikkei fish trucks that brought a taste of home to Japanese Americans throughout Southern California in a program at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM). Her talk, Fish Truck Family Reunion, on Saturday, October 25, 2025, from 2 p.m.–3:30 p.m., is offered in conjunction with JANM’s exhibition, Cruising J-Town: Behind the Wheel of the Nikkei Community. Tickets are $5 and are available at janm.org/events. 

Fresh fish and seafood are a hallmark of delicious Japanese food. The greater Los Angeles area is no exception, with restaurants like Sushi Gen, n/naka, Sushi Sonagi, and more serving the freshest seafood around. Supermarkets like Mitsuwa, Nijiya, and Marukai/Tokyo Central give everyone the opportunity to make Japanese food at home. But over sixty years ago, getting fresh ingredients to make Japanese food was neither easy nor convenient. Enter: Nikkei fish trucks. They brought a taste of home six days a week to Nikkei throughout Southern California. By delivering fresh seafood, rice, and other hard-to-come-by Japanese goods they provided a valuable community service to a growing and dispersed community.

Liu will share testimonies from the families of half a dozen former fish truck operators, with rare photographs and home movies. Liu is the associate curator of Cruising J-Town, an archivist, cultural worker, and writer based in Los Angeles, and author of the Discover Nikkei article, “Remembering the L.A. Retail Fish Association.”

Program Information:

What:
Fish Truck Family Reunion

When: 
Saturday, October 25, 2025, 2 p.m.

Where: 
Japanese American National Museum
Democracy Center
100 North Central Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Tickets:
$5 at janm.org/events

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About the Japanese American National Museum (JANM)

Established in 1985, JANM promotes understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience. Located in the historic Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles, JANM is a center for civil rights, ensuring that the hard-fought lessons of the World War II incarceration are not forgotten. A Smithsonian Affiliate and one of America’s Cultural Treasures, JANM is a hybrid institution that straddles traditional museum categories. JANM is a center for the arts as well as history. It provides a voice for Japanese Americans and a forum that enables all people to explore their own heritage and culture. Since opening to the public in 1992, JANM has presented over one hundred exhibitions onsite while traveling forty exhibits to venues such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Ellis Island Museum in the United States, and to several leading cultural museums in Japan and South America. JANM’s Pavilion is closed for renovation; programs will continue on the JANM campus, throughout Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Southern California, and beyond from early January 2025 through late 2026. For more information, visit janm.org/OnTheGo or follow us on social media @jamuseum.