Overview

J&S Auto follows a day in the life of Joe Iwama—a 99-year-old Japanese American auto mechanic in Los Angeles who has been opening his auto shop every morning since 1949. In this portrait verité documentary, Joe narrates his life as an Asian American working-class immigrant about the California farm life, his family’s incarceration at Japanese “internment” camps, and the middle-minority life he encountered as an Asian between white and Black neighborhoods. This film follows the rhythm of an Asian American who has an intimate tie to the shop he has been a part of for over 70 years, and embodies nearly a century’s worth of experiences as an émigré, camp survivor, small business owner, father and an Angeleno.