To the editor: Thank you for publishing guest contributor Ky-Phong Tran’s thoughtful opinion piece on the “Fast and Furious” films and their Asian American origins (“‘The Fast and the Furious’ took the Asians out of an Asian American story,” June 22).
Tran recounts the story about the role Japanese Americans in Gardena played in the import tuner scene. However, readers may have gotten the impression the scene all started with Honda Civics in the 1990s.
In fact, its origins are rooted in the early 1970s with Gardena hot rodders and their Datsun 510s, which I covered for LACar in 2010.
The inspiration back then came from Brock Racing Enterprises, whose Datsun 510s so dominated the 2.5 series of Trans Am racing that it caused Alfa Romeo and BMW to pull their sponsorship out of the series.
One of these days, director Justin Lin will need to put together a “Fast and Furious” origins story.
Roy Nakano, Monrovia
