MABUHAY

International Hotel 24th Eviction Commemoration Celebration

PNN staff
Tuesday, August 7, 2001;

This past Saturday, August 4th, marked 24 years since the infamous International Hotel eviction. On August 4th 1977, the SFPD with horses and billy clubs brutally broke through a human barricade of tenants’ rights activists. Residents of the hotel, mostly poor and elderly Filipino and Chinese, were evicted from their home, the “I-Hotel” at Kearny and Jackson. The hotel also served as a community center, housing progressive service and arts organizations as well as 75 to 100 tenants. Some had lived there for over 40 years until being forced out by police defending corporate interests. It was not the first time the residents had fought to preserve their home. The I-Hotel had witnessed a long history of struggle.

In the 1920s Filipino men, immigrating to the United States in search of work, found themselves barred from owning land or businesses. Forced into menial, low-paying labor and seasonal farm work, they stayed in rooming houses where they found a sense of community as well as affordable lodgings. The I-Hotel, once a hotel for wealthy visitors to San Francisco, housed Filipino workers for $50 a month, in the center of what was known as “Manilatown.”

The 1960s found Manilatown’s neighborhood community squeezed down into one block, as the Financial District of San Francisco expanded, tearing down low-rent hotels and building high-rises and parking lots. The I-Hotel was bought in 1968 by the Milton Meyer Company. Plans were underway to build a parking garage on the lot, and tenants received eviction notices.

Organizing against their eminent displacement, tenants and the United Filipino Association picketed and protested. An agreement between the two factions granted the tenants the right to stay, but one day later a fire ravaged one wing of the hotel. Three residents were killed, and the suspect fire was never fully investigated as arson. The building was condemned, and tenants once again faced eviction.

Under pressure from the city, the building’s management agreed to lease the I-Hotel to the residents, provided they completed all repairs and brought the building up to code within a year. The Asian American community rallied as residents, activists and students from all around the Bay Area contributed time and labor to save the I-Hotel for its tenants. The youth involved in the project found themselves in the company of wonderful storytellers and teachers. The wisdom, integrity and survival tales of these elderly immigrants inspired the successful restoration.

The tenants faced eviction again when the building was sold to the Four Seas Investment Corporation in 1973. The foreign corporation fought the tenants in court, and won. Tenants and activists again rallied, ion 1976 urging the city to buy the I-Hotel and preserve the affordable housing for the elderly. But Sheriff Richard Hongisto was ordered to carry out the conviction despite community protest.

As documented in Curtis Choy’s film The Fall of the I-Hotel, August 4th, 1977 was a night of powerful activism and barbaric police brutality. A diverse population of protestors formed a human barricade six-persons deep in an attempt to protect the I-Hotel and the elderly residents within. Police stormed with violence and aggression through the wall of activists chanting “No Evictions, We Won’t Move!”

Emptied of its residents, the I-Hotel was demolished by the end of the year. However, activists refused to let the issue rest. A committee known as the Kearny Street Housing Corporation kept watch over the site, vigilantly blocking any development ventures that did not include affordable housing.

In 1994, the Kearny Street Housing Corporation teamed up with St. Mary’s Catholic Center, another Chinatown community institution. They convinced the Four Seas Corporation to finally give up the land. With funds from HUD and the city of San Francisco, plans for affordable housing on the site are now underway.

As well as the 104 unit International Hotel Senior Housing, an elementary school, chapel, gym and parking garage will be built on the site of the former I-Hotel. The Manilatown Community Center will also be housed here, in honor of the communities who have struggled to continue to survive here.

On August 4th,, 2001, members of the community gathered to commemorate the 24th anniversary of the eviction, and to celebrate the future for the site. Activists, poets, musicians and traditional dancers spoke and performed in honor of the residents of the I-Hotel and those who have continued the struggle for social justice and human rights.

For more information on their struggle or to get their excellent book of words, art, and history, contact The Manila Town Heritage Foundation at www.manilatown.org