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The International Hotel struggle and the Filipino community

August 4, 1977 will go down in infamy as the date the City and County of San Francisco executed the most ruthless persecution and violent destruction of human life unparalleled ever except for the 1934 General Strike. The main blow was directed at Manilatown and the Filipinos who lived on Kearny Street since the early 1900's.

Final evictions were carried out in 1977. For those elderly Filipinos and Chinese who fought and stood in defense of their home that night, it was a sad commentary of how inhumane their treatment and the disgrace of a city uncaring to handle the housing crisis and the homeless victims of this and other evictions. However, continued community organizing prevented the owner from building his planned development, even after the building was demolished in 1981. The hole in the ground served for years as a glaring reminder of the human costs and sacrifices to defend affordable housing for minorities and the poor.

In 1994 the owner agreed to sell the property to the Catholic diocese, leading to the construction of a new I-Hotel of low-cost senior housing with a Filipino community center which opened in 2005.

Documents

Informal Conversation with Frank Celada [Part 1] (EH) Informal Conversation with Frank Celada [Part 1] (EH)
Date: 12/1/1997Call Number: IH 017Format: CassetteCollection: The International Hotel struggle and the Filipino community
Estella Habal and Harvey Dong have an informal discussion with Frank Celada over a meal in a restaurant. Celada's family came to United States from the Philippines in 1953. Growing up in the projects of Alameda, his father supported the family as a cook. With the Filipino American community being divided by class, Kearny Street was often looked at as a "rowdy area" that was not for respectable people. Celada got involved in the I-Hotel through his involvement in student activism at Berkeley. The student activist energy at Berkeley was strong and a lot of people wanted to fight for the I-Hotel. Celada reminisces about his activism at Berkeley, and how it led him to become the community liaison with the United Filipino Alliance (UFA) in 1969-70. Talks a lot about group dynamics within the UFA, identifying key players (Mark Batista, Ness Aquino, Tony Ubaldi), and the groups relationship to I-Hotel tenants.
Informal Conversation with Frank Celada [Part 2] (EH) Informal Conversation with Frank Celada [Part 2] (EH)
Date: 12/21/1997Call Number: IH 018Format: CassetteCollection: The International Hotel struggle and the Filipino community
Discussion between Estella Habal, Frank Celada, and Harvey Dong about various student groups and movement building organizations that were involved with the I-Hotel. Focus on the organization AAPA, Asian American Political Alliance. This student organization had connections with the antiwar movement, SNCC and the farm worker movement. All three participants concluded that they got involved with activism due to the third world strike and the I-hotel. They ended the conversation by discussing some of the failures of the struggle to save the I-Hotel. The inclusion of non-Asians is a point of discussion as well as the lack of support from local Filipinos. Estella then talks about Peter Bacho, who taught at Davis, and said that the radicals and disunity ruined the movement, because each emphasized the flaws, and not the larger picture. Finally, the impact of the FBI's counterintelligence program COINTELPRO is discussed with focus on divisions, attacks and infiltration by the FBI which created disillusion and mistrust.