Cruisin’ J-Town Added to 2023 National Film Registry

Visual Communications is honored to announce that Cruisin' J-Town (1975) is one of twenty-five films, this year, to be selected to be apart of the 2023 Library of Congress National Film Registry. The films are selected each year for their cultural, historic or aesthetic importance to preserve the nation’s film heritage.

Jacqueline Stewart, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Director and President and chair of the National Film Preservation Board, highlights the “breadth of experiences in American culture, in American history.”

“I'm delighted to see several films this year that recognize a diversity of Asian American experiences,” she said. “There’s ‘Cruisin’ J-Town,’ a film about jazz musicians in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo community, specifically the band Hiroshima. 

Congratulations Duane! We are incredibly grateful for this opportunity. Thank you to our VC Family for supporting us throughout the years!

FULL LIST OF FILMS SELECTED FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL FILM REGISTRY

ABOUT CRUISIN' J-TOWN
Heavily influenced by Afro-Asian-Latin culture, Cruisin' J-Town, directed by VC co-founder Duane Kubo, follows Hiroshima, a jazz fusion band, and dives into the group’s influences and roots in contemporary Asian American culture. Against the backdrop of community gatherings, daily interaction with people of various backgrounds, and band rehearsals, the band members explore the cultural pulse of the early 1970s.

\Watch Cruisin' J-Town on our new VC Archives website, along with 20 other VC Classics from the 1970s to the 1980s!