A Japanese Language School Alumni Group Portrait ; Vancouver, BC

From this item, LOI has digitized a textual record.

The image shows a group portrait of five rows of men and women in formal dress seated in a wood paneled auditorium. In the front row eight in from the left is Hanako Sato and beside her is Tsutae Sato. The caption on the front is written in Kanji and loosely translates to, ``The fifth anniversary of the Vancouver Japanese Language School. October 23, 1938. Identification of most individuals is available.

Identified in the first row from left to right: unknown, Mrs Motomochi, Mrs Miyagawa, unknown, unknown, unknown, Shige Okumura, Mrs Hanako Sato, Mr Tsutae Sato, Mrs Akiyama, Mr Akiyama, Mr Tagashira, Mrs Ohama or Oyama, Mrs Kagawa, and Mrs Tanaka.

Identified in the second row from left to right: Tamiye (Inamoto) Ono, unknown, Mary Chiyoko (Miyasaki) Taguchi, Lily (Sato) Kaga, Toshiko (Sugimori) Yamashita, Satoko (Kutsukake or Kutsukae) Sato, Tomi (Iwasaki) Kadota?, Amemori?, Yayoi (Fukui) Murakami, unknown, Tomiko (Yesugi) Mizutani, Chiyo (Kawaguchi) Kakino, Tomiko Mizusawa, Fumi (Deshima) Miyasaka, unknown, and unknown.

Identified in the third row from left to right: unknown, unknown, Nobuko (Yamashita) Shibata, unknown, unknown, Tsukamoto?, Hatsuko (Shintani) Fujiwara, unknown, unknown, and unknown.

Identified in the fourth row from left to right: Harry Kondo, Matt Matsui, Matthew Okuno, Kenji Nozaki, unknown, Otto Yanagoisawa, Toru Yamamoto, Hideo Oshimo or Ashimo, unknown, Joe Akiyama, unknown, unknown, and unknown.

Mytssu Sasaki was born on September 9, 1919 on Powell Street in Vancouver, BC. Mytssu's father, Ichiji Sasaki, built one of the biggest bathhouses, the Matsuno-yu at 318 Powell Street in July 1916. It cost $4,600 to build and was elaborate and popular. From 1917-24, he operated the Cordova rooms at 52 Cordova Street and the Union Rooms at 410 Union Street. Then in 1924, he started the Maruichi Restaurant (meshiya) on the 300 block of Powell Street with his wife, Sugae. It mostly served single men who were fishermen and loggers. In 1928, he started the Ichiriki restaurant on Cordova and Dunlevy Streets catering to a higher class clientele. During that time, he brought the first sushi chef from Japan, Mr K Morita. The Sasaki family lived in the three story home that housed the restaurant.

The digital copies of the records were acquired by the Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective between 2014 and 2018.

This record was digitized in full.