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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.
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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.

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.