Legal Correspondence - MacLennan and Robinson (Re Japanese School Maintenance Association) -- March 1948-March 1953

Legal Correspondence - MacLennan and Robinson (Re Japanese School Maintenance Association) -- March 1948-March 1953

Description

Title Proper Legal Correspondence - MacLennan and Robinson (Re Japanese School Maintenance Association) -- March 1948-March 1953
Date(s)
General material designation
This file contains a textual record.
Scope and content
The file consists of legal correspondence from March 1948 to March 1953 with respect to the Japanese School of Languages Maintenance Association's properties at 439 and 475 Alexander Street, Vancouver, B.C., and the status of the Association with the Registrar of Companies during the internment and post-World War II years. The Association was the legal entity that owned the school properties. The correspondence is between Tsutae Sato acting on behalf of the Association and Norris & MacLennan and then MacLennan & Robinson in Vancouver, which were used by the Association to conduct its legal affairs. Sato was writing from Lacombe, Alberta, and then from Vancouver in 1952. Specific topics of the correspondence include refusal to sell school property, the possibility of transferring the property to trustees, payments for legal services, and securing the Association's good standing with the Registrar of Companies by providing information such as director names, annual reports, and financial reports. The file includes the lists of directors from January 12, 1941, December 9, 1941 to December 30, 1942, May 1950 to May 1951, and June 1, 1951 to May 30, 1952. There are financial statements from September 26, 1947 to March 10, 1948, June 1949 to May 1950, June 1950 to May 1951, and January 11, 1953 to January 15, 1954. The file is mostly in English with some Japanese. The file appears to have been bound together with a Japanese cover page.
Name of creator
Tsutae Sato was born in 1891 in the small village of Tanagura machi, Fukushima-ken, Japan. Mr. Sato attended the primary school of the village, followed by studies in Chinese classics at a private school. A short term Normal School opened and he continued his education there. After graduating at the age of sixteen, Tsutae found employment as a teacher at a local primary school. He only taught at this school for one year when he decided to pursue his own academic career by enrolling at Aoyama 師範学校 Teacher Training School (or Normal College) in Tokyo where he studied for four years from April 1909 to March 1913. After graduation, he again worked as a teacher, this time at Shibuya Primary School for four years. While teaching there he received an invitation for employment from the Vancouver Japanese Language School which he accepted and arrived in Vancouver in 1917. Tsutae was the fifth principal of the school. There were about 150 students registered at the Vancouver school when Mr. Sato took over as principal. However, the enrollment rapidly increased especially after 1936 to over 1,000 in 1941, when the school was ordered by the Canadian government to close in December 1941.
Mr. Sato's wife, Hanako, was born in 1901 in Wakayama-ken Japan, but moved to Tokyo when she was only a year old. Then her family moved to Niigata when she was about kindergarten age, and a few years later to Toyama. Her father was a medical doctor, and the family moved with him from one city to another as he frequently relocated. Finally, however, the family settled down in Tokyo. Hanako was a graduate of Tokyo Women's Teacher Training School (current Tokyo Gakugei University) and, like Mr. Sato, taught at a Primary school in Tokyo. In 1921, Hanako came to Canada as a teacher on the invitation of the Japanese Language School of Vancouver, four years after Tsutae arrived. Tsutae and Hanako had known each other and they were married just prior to Hanako's departure for Canada in 1921.
As part of their accomplishments, Tsutae and Hanako were responsible for upgrading and improving the quality offered by the Japanese Language School. They were also the ones primarily responsible for the establishment of the Japanese Canadian Language Schools Federation, as well as for the addition of a larger school building.
The Japanese Language Schools Federations functioned until 1941 when the Pacific War broke out. It fostered a peaceful and harmonious relationship between Japanese schools, thus strengthening the Japanese community as a whole.
During the forced uprooting, Mr. and Mrs. Sato spent eleven years at Lacombe, Alberta, from 1942 to 1952. During this time they managed to travel to practically all of the places where their former students resettled in order to comfort them and encourage them.
In 1952, the Satos returned to Vancouver and resumed their roles as the Principal and teacher of the Vancouver Japanese Language School, until 1966, when they retired.
Mr. Sato's contribution to the society of Canada as a whole was recognized by the Canadian government on July 1978, when he was named a member of the Order of Canada.
Hanako Sato died in Vancouver, May 4, 1983; Tsutae Sato three weeks later on May 23, 1983.
Immediate source of acquisition
The digital copies of the records were acquired by the Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective between 2014 and 2018.

Metadata

Title

Legal Correspondence - MacLennan and Robinson (Re Japanese School Maintenance Association) -- March 1948-March 1953
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Terminology

Readers of these historical materials will encounter derogatory references to Japanese Canadians and euphemisms used to obscure the intent and impacts of the internment and dispossession. While these are important realities of the history, the Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective urges users to carefully consider their own terminological choices in writing and speaking about this topic today as we confront past injustice. See our statement on terminology, and related sources here.