Remembering the I-Hotel
Originally shared May 4, 2023
This AAPI History Month, we reflect on the hard fought battles that working-class Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in California have taken on against corporate villains who put profit over people. Many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders moved to California after US military occupation and expansion in our homelands. And yet, our homes here are constantly being threatened by the greed of corporate landlords and developers.
In the 1960s and 1970s, a diverse coalition of tenants, elders, and organizers battled against corporate landlords Milton Meyer & Company and the Four Seas Investment Company to preserve the International Hotel in San Francisco. The International Hotel (I-Hotel) was a residential hotel in San Francisco that provided affordable housing for low-income Filipino and Chinese communities. A quick timeline:
1968
Milton Meyer & Company threatened to demolish the building and replace it with a multi-level parking garage. For nearly a decade, organizers fought against corporate redevelopments of the I-Hotel
1977
The building was secretly sold to the Four Seas Investment Company. Due to corporate greed, I-Hotel tenants were forcibly evicted from their homes.
2005
Community organizers won the re-construction of the I-Hotel. The new International Hotel Manilatown Center features 100 affordable senior housing units.
Our network builds on the legacy of the I-Hotel struggle.
Housing justice is a historic and core part of working-class struggles. Founders and former staff of our Bay Area Steering Committee organizations were involved in the I-Hotel protests: Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Chinese Progressive Association, Filipino Advocates for Justice.
To this day, corporate landlords like Blackstone continue to drive up housing costs and unfairly evict tenants, making an essential need too damn expensive. This year, we worked with our community partners across the state pushed California’s legislature to pass Senate Bill 567 (The Homelessness Prevention Act) to close loopholes exploited by corporate landlords and protects renters from unjust evictions.
Throughout California, our network organizations organize year-round locally for housing justice. We know that housing insecurity is a root cause of other systemic issues. When we put #CommunitiesOverCorporations, we exercise our governing power generated by decades-long struggles.
Resources
- Curtis Choy’s The Fall of the I-Hotel (documentary film)
- East Wind Zine: Memories of I-Hotel, by Warren Mar: eastwindezine.com/memories-of-the-i-hotel
- International Hotel Senior Housing, Inc.: ihotel-sf.org
- Manilatown Heritage Foundation: manilatown.org
- SF Gate: ‘Manilatown’ will rise again, by Cicero A. Estrella: sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SAN-FRANCISCO-Manilatown-will-rise-again-2–2738327.php
- Unity Newspaper, Vol. 5, Num. 19, Chinese Progressive Association 10th Anniversary: unityarchiveproject.org
