Project Link
https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/image/story/2022-12-05/alan-nakagawa-explores-secret-history-of-green-grocery-truck-for-japanese-immigrants-in-los-angeles

Green Truck Recall Pedora

During the 1960's and 70's, a green truck peddling Japanese grocery items catered to Los Angeles neighborhoods across Los Angeles. Artist Alan Nakagawa recounts his memory of the truck as a five year old accompanying his Grandmother. His research uncovers dozens of similar trucks that are shared by elder Japanese Americans as far north as Saulsalito to as south as San Diego. Inspired by this finding, Nakagawa constructs lanterns in the shape of the grocery items he remembers and parades them installed onto his truck as he visits Los Angeles neighborhoods once populated by Japanese immigrants.

  • Alan Hiroshi Nakagawa
    Director
  • Alan Hiroshi Nakagawa
    Writer
  • Ian Blair
    Producer
    IMAGE magazine/ LA Times
  • Alan Hiroshi Nakagawa
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    12 minutes 6 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    December 1, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    1,500 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • LA Times article/ December 5, 2022
    Los Angeles
    United States
    December 5, 2022
    IMAGE Magazine/ L.A. Times
    IMAGE Magazine article
Director Biography - Alan Hiroshi Nakagawa

Alan Nakagawa is an interdisciplinary artist with archiving tendencies, primarily working with sound, often incorporating various media and working with communities and their histories.
Nakagawa has been working on a series of semi-autobiographic sound-architecture/tactile sound experiences, utilizing multi-point audio field recordings of historic interiors; Peace Resonance; Hiroshima/Wendover combines recordings of the interiors of the Hiroshima Atomic Dome (Hiroshima, Japan) and Wendover Hangar (Utah); Conical Sound; Antoni Gaudi and Simon Rodia combines recordings of the interiors of Watts Towers (Los Angeles) and the Sagrada Familia (Barcelona, Spain).
Premiered in 2023, Point of Turn, is his first vibratory sound work involving the human voice; utilizing collected stories about moments or events that resulted in someone leaving their organized religion. For this work, the combining of these stories and the analog data stretching of a verse and chorus of the 1970’s seminal pop band, 10CC’s hit song, “I’m Not in Love”.
Nakagawa is also currently the artist-in-resident at the Gerth Archives, California State University Dominguez Hills assigned to the newly acquired L.A. Free Press/Art Kunkin Collection.
His first book, “A.I.R.Head: Anatomy of an Artist in Residence” was published in January 2023 by Writ-Large Press. It maps his artistic trajectory that led to his nine artist-in-residencies in six years.

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Director Statement

I was born and raised in what’s now Koreatown. Before it became Koreatown, it was, at least in my immediate neighborhood, packed with Japanese immigrants. But there were no Japanese markets, so there was this truck that would park literally across the street from our house and honk the horn. The truck was run by a Japanese man. I would go there with my grandmother; I was always enamored by the Japanese candy that was hanging on the shelves. It was as big as a UPS truck, but it was green. It had a center aisle and on both sides were shelves and cabinets. There were sinks with lots of crushed ice with seafood on it. You could get vegetables, rice, seaweed — pretty much what you would see at a Japanese market today — but it was all in this truck. Most of my memories are visceral. I remember the owner wearing an apron. I remember him wearing black rubber boots. I remember the scale — I was fascinated by the scale. I remember the smell of the fish.