Nikkei Car Clubs

Don Mizota was born in Los Angeles in 1940 and as a toddler, he and his family spent the wartime years interned in Jerome, Arkansas, then Amache, Colorado. Upon their release, the Mizota family returned to Southern California, settling in the San Fernando Valley, near Hansen Dam. They lived close to Basilone Homes, then a housing project for veterans, but by the late 1940s, the barracks had been torn down and replaced by the short-lived Hansen Dam Race Track. It was there that Don first fell in love with cars. He recalls walking to the race track and “standing by ...