Search Help

How does this work?
There are many ways to search the collections of the Freedom Archives. Below is a brief guide that will help you conduct effective searches. Note, anytime you search for anything in the Freedom Archives, the first results that appear will be our digitized items. Information for items that have yet to be scanned or yet to be digitized can still be viewed, but only by clicking on the show link that will display the hidden (non-digitized) items. If you are interested in accessing these non-digitized materials, please email info@freedomarchives.org.
Exploring the Collections without the Search Bar
Under the heading Browse By Collection, you’ll notice most of the Freedom Archives’ major collections. These collections have an image as well as a short description of what you’ll find in that collection. Click on that image to instantly explore that specific collection.
Basic Searching
You can always type what you’re looking for into the search bar. Certain searches may generate hundreds of results, so sometimes it will help to use quotation marks to help narrow down your results. For instance, searching for the phrase Black Liberation will generate all of our holdings that contain the words Black and Liberation, while searching for “Black Liberation” (in quotation marks) will only generate our records that have those two words next to each other.
Advanced Searching
The Freedom Archives search site also understands Boolean search logic. Click on this link for a brief tutorial on how to use Boolean search logic. Our search function also understands “fuzzy searches.” Fuzzy searches utilize the (*) and will find matches even when users misspell words or enter in only partial words for the search. For example, searching for liber* will produce results for liberation/liberate/liberates/etc.
Keyword Searches
You’ll notice that under the heading KEYWORDS, there are a number of words, phrases or names that describe content. Sometimes these are also called “tags.” Clicking on these words is essentially the same as conducting a basic search.

Search Results

Growing Up on Kearny Street" Tape 2 (cont.), Eastwind Books (EH), KPFA talk with Emil Deguzman, Norman Jayo, and Shiree Tang (EH), Luisa Castro (EH) Growing Up on Kearny Street" Tape 2 (cont.), Eastwind Books (EH), KPFA talk with Emil Deguzman, Norman Jayo, and Shiree Tang (EH), Luisa Castro (EH)
Call Number: CD 501AFormat: Cass ACollection: Compact discs and videos representing digitized copies of analog tapes
Second part of a symposium named "Growing Up on Kearny Street". Contains an unidentified man recollecting his experiences on Kearney Street and his history in the army (WWII). He briefly reflects on the racial climate in the armed forces. Tony Robles, the nephew of Al Robles, recites poetry and reminisces about his experience growing up in San Francisco. To conclude the symposium, a unidentified woman tells of her family history and their journey to America throughout the 1920s and 1940s. Also sheds light on the social ills such as conditions of Kearny Street and surrounding areas during her years as a child and teenager. The biggest social ill was women not being allowed to live on Kearny street and the dangers women and children face. (8/4/1997) At a poetry reading in Eastwind Books, Al Robles reads a piece that begins, "Coming Home to this Place Called Manilatown". (8/5/1997) Two radio hosts talk with Emil Deguzman, Norman Jayo and Shiree Tang (on the phone) about the I-Hotel. Issues relate to housing struggles, and gentrification in San Francisco. Emil explains about the hotel previously being a community for bachelor Filipinos unable to marry. Due to immigration laws disallowing Filipina women from entering the country, anti-miscegenation laws disallowed interracial couples. Shiree Tang talks about how the I-hotel was also a home to Asian American leftist organizations such as Kearny Street Workshop and Chinese Progressive Association. The struggle over the I-Hotel was a fight for the community's entitlement to that land. "Paving new roads", the energy of that moment remains through the people, old and young. Norman and Emil explain how gentrification destroyed communities such as Yerba Buena, Tenderloin, and the Filmore. With no city plan, tenants had no choice but to stay in the hotel and resist all they could. For everyone involved in the struggle, the mission eventually was not to save the hotel, but to show the world that the city was evicting the elderly from their homes. (8/7/1997) Short, informal interview of writer/journalist/activist Luisa Castro conducted by Estella Habal. Luisa explains her background as a mixed Black and Filipina woman who grew up in Portland, Oregon with her mother. Growing up, she never belonged in the white community and knew from an early age that she had no place in the white race. She identifies Lloyd Wake and Ron Takaki as two professors who actively supported the third world strike. (10/8/1997)