Written by Reiko Pleau, edited by Lisa Uyeda
N. Matsubayashi Bilingual Business Card and Letterhead. Matsubayashi Family Collection. NNMCC 2019.16.1.1.59
This item consists of a business card for N. (Nakataro) Matsubayashi, adhered to a sheet of paper featuring N. Matsubayashi’s business letterhead. The business card states Nakataro’s profession as a jeweller, operating from a shop at 202 Main Street, Vancouver, BC. The letterhead further details his occupation as extending to the “watch, clock, and jewelry, etc.” business. It also shows his use of P.O. Box 927 for correspondence, and features the same name, business, and contact information in Japanese. At the top right corner there is an illustration depicting a pocket watch, opened to reveal its inner workings.
The Matsubayashi jewelry and watchmaking shop operated for over 40 years before Nakataro’s livelihood and much of his work were lost during the forced dispossession, relocation and incarceration of Japanese Canadians from 1942-49. Before 1942, Matsubayashi guided apprentices in metalsmithing and watchmaking, and stocked pieces by local artisans, including a jeweler named Y. Kuroda, ca. 1912. Kiyozo Kawai and Iuemon Yonemitsu, among others, were employed by Matsubayashi.
Nakataro Matsubayashi was my great-grandfather. Recently I’ve reflected on this piece of my family’s history through my own visual art practice. I’ve created two works as part of a series called Family Jewelry, included in the group exhibition Umami: Savouring Nikkei Artist Identity, on view until September 27, 2025.
The first piece, called Family Jewelry, is a drawing featuring a collection of costume jewelry passed down from my mother and grandmother. The pieces are arranged to resemble a single unified necklace as an imagined heirloom. Unlike the fine jewelry my great-grandfather once crafted, these items are mass-produced and materially inexpensive. Yet they carry significance as family artefacts. Drawing them is a way of honouring their presence while pointing to the absence of what was taken. Perhaps the act of collecting costume jewelry became, for my grandmother and mother, a subconscious effort to replace what was lost. This piece reflects on inherited loss, and how memory, value, and resilience can be carried through even the most modest of objects.
The second piece is a small oil painting called Ruby. It is a self-portrait centered on a ruby necklace made by my great-grandfather for my grandmother, which she later passed down to me. The pendant, a single ruby set in gold, hangs from a delicate gold chain. The ruby is my grandmother’s birthstone, and the necklace is one of the few surviving pieces of my great-grandfather’s craftsmanship.
My great-grandfather’s business card and letterhead serve not only as remnants of what was lost, but of what perseveres, and as catalysts for new memory-making. Inspired by these archival records, the art I’ve created reflects on some of what our family lost, and the ways that value, both emotional and cultural, can be carried forward across generations.
Reiko Pleau (she/they) is a 4th generation mixed race white and Japanese Canadian settler residing on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. She recently graduated with a Master’s of Archival Studies from the University of British Columbia and currently works as a digital archivist at the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre.
Explore more from our collections at nikkeimuseum.org. To learn more about our family history research resources, contact the Collections & Archives Team at [email protected].
