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IT IS LATE MORNING ON A WARM SATURDAY AFTERNOON and the line to purchase tickets for the car show, "Import Showoff," already has snaked around the San Jose convention center. I wait among the throng of young Asian American males dressed in baggy jeans, puffy jackets, and tennis shoes and females dressed in midriff-baring baby T-shirts, tight jeans, and highheel sandals. Once inside, hip-hop music is blasting from the speakers and all I can see are neatly lined rows of highly modified, "souped up," import cars parked side-by-side, hoods open and engines displayed. Standing next to the cars are the proud owners who talk eagerly to spectators and bystanders about engine specifics, body kits, paint color, and interior design. Heads turn when a group of Asian American women dressed in tight tank tops with "Asian Scene" written across their chest and short mini-skirts come strolling by arm-in-arm and stop to pose for photos in front of a car and its wide-grinning male owner. A group of guys shove and scoot their way up to the front to get their pictures taken with the import models. Nearby, vendors in tents promote aftermarket car products and hand out promotional posters, stickers, and magazines. Meanwhile judges work through the crowd, methodically examining each import car to determine which will be named the " Best of Show" in today's competition.
This is a glimpse of a unique and popular youth car subculture referred to as the "import scene." The import scene, which formed in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a small oppositional Asian American youth car subculture in the streets of Los Angeles, has grown in popularity among car enthusiasts around the world and today fuels a billion-dollar aftermarket car industry. As with any underground subculture that gains popularity in mainstream society, the import scene has experienced increasing corporate sponsorship as well as a flood of new participants, particularly of Latino and white youth. The current import scene includes a diverse group of enthusiasts across the nation and internationally.
The purpose of this article is to localize the import scene by drawing on an ethnographic study of the Asian American members of an import car crew, for the purpose of illustrating the cultural production of an oppositional...