This narrative centers on Nisei Week in Los Angeles, the largest annual Japanese celebration in the United States. During Nisei Week, parades, beauty pageants, and fashion and talent shows all contribute to a festival environment where social identities are displayed and contested. The celebration is a critical site of political conflict, and the ways it has changed over the years reflect the ongoing competition over what it has meant to be Japanese American. Kurashige reveals, subtly and with attention to gender issues, the tensions that emerged at different moments not only between those who emphasized Japanese ethnicity and those who stressed American orientation but also between generations and classes in this complex community.