Business - Incoming and Outgoing -- re: vital statistics of Japanese Canadians -- 1958

From this file, LOI has digitized a textual record.

The file consists of incoming and outgoing business correspondence related to Tsutae Sato's inquiries into population statistics of Japanese Canadians as part of his duties in 1958 as Secretary for the Committee of Japanese Canadians B.C. Centennial Celebration. The file includes replies to Sato's statistic requests for provincial population and birth rates for people of Japanese descent in each province. His requests were ultimately referred to the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, which provided him with birth and death information from 1951 to 1957 and the population as recorded in the 1951 Census. The file also contains a letter from the Salmon Arm Japanese-Canadians' Association with population estimates and profession data by generation. The letter is addressed to a T. Saito but is likely a misspelling of Sato's name. These incoming letters are typed in English. The file also contains notes in Japanese and number charts as well as Japanese writing on Mio & Canada Renraku Kyokai's letterhead and on The New Canadian's letterhead.

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.

No digital copies of the records were acquired by the Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective between 2014 and 2018.