Landscapes of Injustice Claim Series #5 Examining the Sato Fonds

This article in our series on the four claims highlights Claim #2, Dispossession Required Sustained Work. It comes to us from Laura Saimoto from the Vancouver Japanese Language School, one of our partner institutions. Congratulations to the hard work to have their school and Japanese Hall designated as a National Historic Site.

Examining the Sato Fonds

By Laura Saimoto, Community Relations Committee

Claim series 5 Laura Saimoto Sato Fonds

With the help of Landscapes of Injustice’s former post doc, Eiji Okawa, and the Nikkei National Museum’s Collections Manager, Lisa Uyeda I spent the day at the museum archives to look at the original source documents from Principal Sato’s collections.  This was to prep our materials for our National Historic Site Announcement. I found the letter from Principal Sato, who was Secretary on the Board, to the School’s lawyer who helped us navigate through the internment and keep the building.

Photo: Source:  Sato Fonds, Nikkei National Museum Archives

I pieced together the timeline based on the original source letters in the Sato fonds, and now have a much better understanding of what actually happened. It was definitely a zigzag miracle that we are still here. There are Custodian original documents and also the board’s responses, collected from the directors. The board of directors, who were scattered in various internment sites, did everything through our lawyer, Norris MacLennan to manage all issues dealing with the property and organization.  Really, when you look at it, it’s against all odds that the property wasn’t sold. The Custodian waited until 1946 to announce the sell-off of Society & Association properties. The board told the Custodian they would only sell for $35,000. It cost $40,000 to build the building in 1928. What is very interesting is that the 1949 property value assessment of 475 Alexander was $2250. This is very undervalued. No buyers bit. In the meantime, the building was under lease to the Department of National Defence and then the Army & Navy Department Store. All transactions were being managed through our lawyer.

The next hurdle:  because of the internment, we were in default from 1942 – 49 with the Company of Registrar for not filing our Annual Reports and Financial Statements and not holding AGMs. Somehow, with the help of the lawyer and getting all the documentation together – all the director lists, the financial statements or Custodian financial statements, and then holding meetings via post and the AGM within BC – they managed to get in good standing with the Company of Registrars by 1952. There was no membership during the internment since no one paid fees. According to our bylaws, because the fee was 50 cents/month and you became a voting member when you paid 3 months, they collected $1.50 retroactively or $5 for annual member fees so that lapsed members due to being interned could vote at the first post-internment AGM. In 1952 the Society once again came into good standing with the Registrar. Thanks to the community making the building usable again – fixing and cleaning while they themselves were again starting their lives from scratch, the School reopened in 1953. An unbelievable story of community resilience, which includes our trusted lawyer, J. A. MacLennan, who used the system to beat the system!