Macer Okamoto to Colonel Pope and Mr. George Alexander, 27 March 1944 Encoder Ariel Merriam

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 Library and Archives Canada, Office of the Custodian of Enemy Property Fonds, C-1 Office Files LOI Navigation Taxonomy Taxonomy for site navigation CollectionsProtest Letters LOI Document Type Taxonomy Taxonomy of document types Primary SourceA primary source document.Protest LetterA letter protesting the sale of property or a government reply to protest letter.Responsibility TaxonomyMarkup EditorA person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. Macer Okamoto
562 Dougall Ave., Windsor, Ont. Ontario
March 27th, 1944. Col. Colonel Pope Mr. George Alexander
3436 Whittier Ave. Victoria, B.C.
Added sourceDesc bibl/pointer to RADish item using XSLT. Added navigation taxonomy value loiCollectionProtestLetters using XSLT. Used XLST to add, publicationStmt, recipient info to those missing, and @ref for orgName that are Custodians Office. Updated facsimile pointer using XSLT. Created individual file from larger protest_letters.xml document.
562 Dougall Ave., Windsor, Ont. Ontario
March 27th, 1944. Col.Colonel Pope, c/o care of Mr. George Alexander,
3436 Whittier Ave. Victoria, B.C.
Dear Sir:

I have received word from Mr. Alexander stating that our belongings are to be taken away from our home and are to be later sold at auction.

Surely there must be a terrible mistake somewhere! I can't even imagine any possible reason for our property being confiscated.

It would be different if my father happened to be a Japanese National (an enemy alien) but, if you will take the trouble to look up the records, you will find that he is a naturalized Canadian citizen - having taken his papers out in or around 1913. Doesn't his naturalization papers mean anything?

You will find that the citizenship status of the whole family is good too. Neither my father nor mother has ever sent money out of this country. Plenty of good people will vouch for us as for character references.

Aged as they are (my father is 64 this year and my mother is 62 years old) - sooner than go to one of the so-called "ghost towns" to "live on the Government" - they volunteered, with the four girls and son-in-law, to go to Alberta to try to make a go of it on a sugar beet farm for the duration. And that wasn't an easy decision for them to make either! But then, they figured they would be co-operating with the authorities if they did - please don't say that they were too much so.

We had every faith that it was for our protection when we handed everything to the Custodian for safe keeping. Otherwise we would have sold some of the things on our own as many were doing.

I haven't had the heart to tell the folks about this latest development. Rather than send in for a lot of the things they need for every day use they've either bought a few new articles or done without, because they were all looking forward to going back home as soon as the war is over. Surely they aren't to be deprived of spending the last few years of their lives living in their own home!

Please drop me a line as soon as possible as I'm in a quandary as to what to tell the folks.

Thanking you in advance.

Yours truly, Macer Okamoto P. S. I'm sending this c/o Mr. Alexander because I've misplaced the address of the Custodian's office in Victoria and have no time to look for same now. M.O.