It was a struggle that involved not only Filipinos but other Asian Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, student activists, religious groups and organizations, gays and lesbians, leftists, and community activists. Manilatown, the Kearny/Jackson Street area of San Francisco, became a permanent
Jim Jones and His People, "Rare screening of 1983's 'The Fall of the I-Hotel', "Lysley Tenorio new story collection, 'Monstress,' looks at illusions held and lost - The Boston Globe", "Review: 'Monstress' a powerful look at Filipino-American life in S.F. At its height, decades earlier, the enclave contained up to 30,000 transient Filipino laborers. ");b!=Array.prototype&&b!=Object.prototype&&(b[c]=a.value)},h="undefined"!=typeof window&&window===this?this:"undefined"!=typeof global&&null!=global?global:this,k=["String","prototype","repeat"],l=0;lb||1342177279>>=1)c+=c;return a};q!=p&&null!=q&&g(h,n,{configurable:!0,writable:!0,value:q});var t=this;function u(b,c){var a=b.split(". Law enforcement clashed with a 3,000-person, nonviolent human barricade that had formed around the building, and dragged protesters onto the street from inside the hotel. Protesters at an anti-eviction rally in January 1977. Yamamoto is sitting in the International Hotel Manilatown Center on a recent Sunday afternoon. The buildings owners wanted to demolish the hotel initially for a parking lot and, later, for a commercial high-rise. In the wake of the eviction, the elders scattered. settlement, a convenient culture contact. [12], The fourth incarnation of the International Hotel. In 2003, construction began on the new I-Hotel, and the building was completed on August 26, 2005. Envelopes on a bed and an ashtray on top of a clock in a mock bedroom in the commemorative space of the International Hotel Manilatown Center. Additionally, a new mural on the site of the new building by Johanna Poethig features Robles, Etta Moon, Bill Sorro, and other tenant activists, commemorating their struggle to preserve affordable housing in San Francisco. Members of the Peoples' Temple at the anti-eviction rally January 1977. A mock bedroom in the commemorative space of the International Hotel Manilatown Center. A lot of them had been here for over 30 years, but they could still barely speak English or write. They were considered overcrowded. In Yamamotos re-created room are a bed, a small radiator, an alarm clock and ashtray atop a nightstand, vinyl records on shelves, a sack of rice next to a set of drawers. The International Hotel, often referred to locally as the I-Hotel, was a low-income single-room-occupancy residential hotel in San Francisco, California's Manilatown. In their retired years, the manongs would hang out at Tinos Barber Shop and shoot pool at Lucky M Pool Hall. Student activists became among the strongest supporters of the I-Hotel. It was not just Filipinos, however, who got involved in the I-Hotel struggle. A resident and a supporter look out a window at the old International Hotel in 1977. Stack of eviction notices ripped from the old International Hotel by demonstrators. [2] During the 1920s and 1930s, thousands of seasonal Asian laborers came to reside at the I-Hotel. Born and raised in San Francisco, De Guzman grew up visiting Manilatown with his father. Around 1954, the I-Hotel also famously housed in its basement Enrico Banduccci's original "hungry i" nightclub. He was a very good manager, you see, but he was also a card-bearing member of the Communist Party of the USA. How much did we lose? 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During the late 60s, real estate corporations proposed plans to demolish the hotel, which would necessitate displacing all of the I-Hotel's elderly tenants.[1]. Activists and former residents recall the 1977 eviction from the International Hotel after a 10-year-struggle with the property owner and the city of San Francisco. Protest at City Hall during final months before eviction, 1977. (Calvin Trillin, U.S. Journal: San Francisco, Some Thoughts on the International Hotel Controversy, The New Yorker, December 19, 1977) In response, the tenants organized the United Filipino Association (UFA) to battle the eviction. occupation of the Philippines from the turn of the 20th century until 1946, were American nationals. Among some of KSW's members were artist Jim Dong, playwrights Lane Nishikawa and Norman Jayo, photographers Crystal Huie and Leny Limjoco, silk-screen artists Leland Wong and Nancy Hom (KSWs current director), and poets Al Robles, George Leong, Doug Yamamoto, Genny Lim, Russell Leong, and Jeff Tagami and Shirley Ancheta. The new buildings existence is bittersweet a testament to the survival of the I-Hotel name but a reminder that the elderly manongs lost the right to live the rest of their years in peace in the old hotel. How long does an ember last? Robles asks afterward. August 5, 1977, the day after the eviction of the I-Hotel. Its like, who gets targeted, which ones are blighted communities when for us, generally for the minority communities, that was a bustling area.. (function(){for(var g="function"==typeof Object.defineProperties?Object.defineProperty:function(b,c,a){if(a.get||a.set)throw new TypeError("ES3 does not support getters and setters. port, where distant relatives and friends could be contacted, where they could enjoy the security of a common culture. In 1969, tenants and activists successfully negotiated an extended lease from Milton Meyer & Co. To finance this lease, Asian American art workshops Kearny Street Workshop and Jackson Street Gallery, as well as other rent-paying cultural organizations and businesses such as Everybody's Bookstore, moved into the basement of the I-Hotel. Protesters battle police at the old International Hotel in 1977. When he heard about the eviction notices and the subsequent fire that killed three hotel tenants, he rallied other Berkeley students to protest the eviction: "I got really involved in the I-Hotel and organized students to go down there and picket outside Walter Shorenstein's office.". Activists rally to save the old International Hotel in 1977. San Francisco really became, at that moment, a police state, says Emil De Guzman, a young tenant then who served as president of the I-Hotel Tenants Association. A large hole in the ground remained as the corporate owner battled a city-backed Citizens Advisory Committee over what would become of the space. The original International Hotel, intended as a luxury destination for wealthy travelers, was built on Jackson Street in 1854, moved to its 848 Kearny Street
[9] Within six hours, all 55 remaining tenants had been evicted. [3] The communities and building around the I-Hotel grew into a 10-block Filipino American enclave along Kearny Street known as Manilatown, the Manilatown section of San Francisco. Both organizations strongly supported mainland China and Chairman Mao Zedong's Communist government, and this conflicted with the Chinatown leadership, who supported the Koumintang Government (KMT) in Taiwan. Robles, whose poetry was recently collected in Rappin' with 10,000 Carabaos in the Dark elaborated: "It wasn't only a hotel: it was a gathering place that brought them together. In 1977, the tenants of the International Hotel, mostly elderly Filipinos, were evicted. Within the movement, there was a convergence among young, radical Asian Americans inspired by the political efforts of the antiwar movement and the Third World Liberation cause. Letter to City of San Francisco, October 31, 2013. The reverends Cecil Williams (Glide Church) and Jim Jones (People's Temple) at an anti-eviction rally at the I-Hotel, January 1977. The building became a symbol of other displacement pressures that threatened vulnerable communities. It was celebration; it was ritual. community in San Francisco, and one of the first (and few) across the country. Their living quarters were small but had touches of home. On one side: the Transamerica Pyramid and the metropolitan sheen of the Financial District that swallowed a neighborhood. [8], In the early morning of August 4, 1977, 400 San Francisco riot police began to physically remove tenants from homes despite the 3,000 protesters attempting to surround and barricade the I-Hotel. //]]>. The designation is the first step in gathering political clout to protect the Filipino community from gentrification, says Supervisor Jane Kim, a major proponent of the district and a former community organizer at the development center. Enrico Banduccci, opened his original
But the manong community was not insular. [1] This demolition would happen concurrently with the destruction of ten blocks of low-cost housing, restaurants, barber shops, markets, clubs and other Filipino community businesses. The leftist Kalayan newspaper was also published at the I-Hotel, and its members would go on to form the Katipunan ng mga Demoratikong Pilipino (KDP), which became the largest Filipino socialist organization in America. Chinatown pretty much exists today because we fought not only for neighborhood preservation, but we had to learn the planning smarts in many ways, says Fong, who was present during the protests on the night of the eviction. What kind of manongs are these?. Peter Yamamoto composes his daily schedule on his computer. [1] However, in 1974, tenants received eviction notices from Four Seas Investment Corporation, forcing community organizers to revise their plans to resist eviction. [1] The Chinatown Community Development Center was chosen to steward this grant. Marasigan, known as Bullet X to her friends, discovered that they were not receiving their full benefits. Workers boarding up windows and doors of the old International Hotel. Among the earliest Filipino activists working with the I-Hotel was Violeta Marasigan, then a recent graduate of San Francisco State College who was hired as a social worker by the UFA as part of their Multi-Service Center: "When I started working with the old men, I saw that they were discriminated against in terms of their access to social services. It was the home field-workers returned to, where merchant marines lived while in
Luis Syquia, a poet and activist of the I-Hotel struggles, explains, The main focus, rationale, and philosophy behind the Kearny Street Workshop was to really reflect the communities that we came from, and also to contribute to those communities through our art. KSW brought together Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, and Korean artists and writers into one community. An empty lot stands at the site of the old International Hotel in 1986. Police guard the old International Hotel in 1977. [3], In October 1973, the Thailand-based Four Seas Investment Corporation bought the I-Hotel with the similar intentions to replace it with more profitable building or structure.[1]. With its left-leaning management and tenants, the red brick building quickly became known as the Red Block. Explained Robles, the unofficial Zen Master of the Filipino community, The I-Hotel was the life of the manongs, the life of the Filipinos. In 1994, real estate company Pan-Magna sold the I-Hotel land to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco. "To my mind," explained Walter Shorenstein, chairman of Milton Meyer, "I was getting rid of a slum." After the site was purchased by the International Hotel Senior Housing Inc., it was rebuilt and opened in 2005. [CDATA[ Between the two sits the new I-Hotel, an echoing remnant of Manilatown. [5] This "urban renewal" that occurred in response to the end of World War II had destroyed the heart of the Fillmore District, San Francisco, and hundreds of homes and thousands of residents were displaced due to the city's plans to expand the downtown business sector. The Rev. During that time, Joe Diones was the manager of the I-Hotel, said Marasigan, herself an anti-martial law activist who would later be imprisoned by Marcos. After Jones was appointed as Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission, the Housing Authority voted to acquire the building using $1.3million in federal funds and then to turn it over to tenants rights groups. The International Hotel Tenants Association (ITHA) eventually replaced the UFA, and Filipino student activists like De Guzman assumed the leadership. Peter Yamamoto was one of the tenants evicted from the International Hotel in 1977 and now lives two blocks away. A man waits for the bus in front of the International Hotel on Kearny Street. When he was 20 in 1974, Yamamoto became one of the few younger residents among the collection of retired migrant farmworkers, merchant marines, and restaurant and hotel service workers renting units for $45 a month with their Social Security checks. Theyd eat at Bataan Lunch and celebrate in the I-Hotel basement, where potlucks were held and the famous hungry i nightclub was located. They backed their horses into the crowd, Yamamoto says, his voice breaking. In many cases, the law is invoked to convert the building to high-priced condominium spaces. [1] The new building contains 105apartments of senior housing. Immigration laws re-enforced the role the International Hotel played as a family with the social protection it provided. Eventually, the police overtook the roof, where more protesters stood, and broke through the windows of the rooms. Manilatown Heritage Foundation, "We Must Say No." ", James Sobredo, excerpted from "From Manila Bay to Daly City: Filipinos in San Francisco" in Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, and Culture, A City Lights Anthology, 1998. Correction: This article misstated who was responsible for forcing an exemption for single-room-occupancy buildings from the state Ellis Act. Its our job to make sure we keep it so that it doesnt disappear.. "[8] Sheriff Richard Hongisto, a political ally of Jones, refused to execute the eviction order, which resulted in Hongisto being held in contempt of court and serving five days in his own jail. Some found places in the shrinking number of residential hotels, while others were forced to leave the city. Pedestrians near the new International Hotel. "hungry i" (hungry intelectual) nightclub next door to Club Mandalay in the basement of the International Hotel where performing
The bomb did not explode, but upon hearing the news at the time, Robles looked out an I-Hotel window, saw hundreds of people marching and chanting, and said, We dont even know who these guys are. The I-Hotel also became a bastion of Asian American cultural expression. Emil De Guzman, one of the tenants evicted from the old International Hotel in 1977, holds an original pin that he and other activists wore as they were fighting the evictions. For several minutes, he seems to be trying to concentrate as he recounts what occurred 40 years ago. Gerald Andag (left), Carmencita Choy and Benito Santiago chant during a vigil outside the International Hotel Manilatown Center. They were looking for identity at that time, and they werent comfortable with just assimilating, says Caroline Cabading, the executive director of the Manilatown Center. The center is on the bottom floor of the new International Hotel building, serving as a gallery space and community center commemorating the original hotel and the battle over its survival as the last vestige of San Franciscos once prospering Manilatown. It was their heart, it was their poetry, it was their song. up businesses. Source: Terry Hong, San Francisco Chronicle, 19 August 2007. After that, everybody had their full SSI benefits. In the autumn of 1968, Milton Meyer and Company, which owned the hotel, started sending eviction notices to the tenants of the I-Hotel. //
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