A Group Portrait of Dance School Members at 439 Alexander Street; Vancouver, BC

This item contains a textual record.

The image shows a group portrait of two rows of young girls wearing kimono, in the third row are women who wear western clothes and kimono. They pose outdoors in front of the Japanese Language School in Vancouver, BC. In the front row from left to right they are unidentified, unidentified, Mytssu Sasaki, Misao Hatanaka, unidentified, unidentified, Sumi Matsuno and unidentified (dance teacher).

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.