A Portrait of a Boy in a Kimono; Greenwood, BC

From this item, LOI has digitized a textual record.

The image shows a boy on a stage wearing a plaid kimono holding up a piece of material and pointing at it with his other hand. There is a drawing of a turtle hanging on the wall in the background.

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.