Weather charts (1942-1944)
Description
Title Proper | Weather charts (1942-1944) |
Date(s) of material from this resource digitized | |
General material designation |
From this file, LOI has digitized a textual record.
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Scope and content |
The file consists of hand drawn weather point graphs from November 1942 to April 1944.
The file also contains a telegraph from the Office of Custodian to Tsutae Sato in
College Heights, Alberta, about rental and sales offers for a school building as well
as notes in Japanese, likely regarding Bay Farm, Lemon Creek, and New Denver. The
file is in Japanese and English.
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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.
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Immediate source of acquisition |
No digital copies of the records were acquired by the Landscapes of Injustice Research
Collective between 2014 and 2018.
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Structure
Repository | Nikkei National Museum |
Fonds | Tsutae and Hanako Sato fonds |
Series | Miscellaneous |
Metadata
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Title
Weather charts (1942-1944)
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Source: Nikkei National Museum
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.