Two historic Filipino American hotels connected by BLM marchers

KQED

Filipino American demonstrators marched in support of Black Lives Matter.

Two hotels that played roles in Filipino American history were connected June 10 by scores of demonstrators marching in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The march began at the Gran Oriente Filipino Hotel in the officially designated Filipino Town in the South of Market area of San Francisco. The hotel still house elderly members of the Gran Oriente, one of several fraternal organizations Filipinos created in the early 1900s for comradeship and self-protection.

The demonstrators then walked a mile and a half to the International Hotel in what used to be Manilatown. The I-Hotel was the last vestiges of Manilatown and served as the home of elderly Filipinos and Chinese up until 1977 when its tenants were violently evicted by the San Francisco Police.

The eviction was the culmination of a decade-long battle to save the I-hotel that provided low-rent housing for mostly Filipino and Chinese tenants.

The Singapore-based owners of low-income housing first tried to evict the tenants in 1968. Joining the protests against the eviction were hundreds of members of the Black community, including the Black Panthers and the congregations of several predominantly black churches. 

Blacks joined the human barricade of thousands of Asian Americans ringing the hotel five deep to prevent several attempts to evict the elderly tenants.

“They've had our backs for so long,” Gianni Magpantay told KQED. “In this event, we're sharing some history on the International Hotel that got raided by 400 riot police and our Black brothers sisters showed up for us,” Magpantay said on why it is now important for the Filipino community to show up for the Black community.

Eli Frances Abad, who is Filipino American, organized the event. He recalled the historical location and historical advocacy “They were there when they were being evicted and they formed a barricade around the hotel to protect the Filipinos, so it’s our duty and responsibility to protect, stand and fight with them.”

Abad said that the black and Filipino communities have more shared histories than cultural differences.

“The black community has a lot of historical connection with the Filipinos. We have black Filipinos. We have black roots.” referencing the indigenous Negritos, whom anthropologists say are the earliest inhabitants  of the Philippines.

Filipino American historic hotel preserved as affordable housing

MISSION HOUSING

The historic Gran Oriente Hotel is located at 106 South Park Street.

SAN FRANCISCO rent is among the highest in the country. Rents have risen even faster and higher in the trendy South of Market neighborhood.

The city and housing advocates have succeeded in preserving the historic Gran Oriente Hotel, which  provides 24 single-room affordable housing for recent immigrants and their families.

“I think community members around the city and county of San Francisco and the Bay Area and beyond are watching exactly what’s happening in the heart of the Filipino cultural heritage district, and watching how the community is taking back its cultural assets, partnering with non-profits and housing organizations to really not only sustain but, in the long term, empower,” said San Francisco Mayor London Breed during a ribbon cutting ceremony.

The preservation of the low-rent  property grew stronger when the hotel formed a partnership with Filipino community organizations and the Mission Housing Development Corporation, the hotel's 24 units of affordable housing will remain available and all existing tenants can remain.

Smack dab in the middle of it all is the modest Gran Oriente Hotel, owned by Gran Oriente, one of the fraternal lodges formed in the early part of the last century by Filipino men who worked in the hotels, Merchant Marine and the farm fields of California. Because of the racist laws of the early 20th century, Filipinos were not allowed to own property. However, that law didn't apply to lodges.

So the Filipino men (because of another racist labor rule that limited immigration of Filipinas) banded together to purchase property that included the hotel. They bought the hotel in the South of Market area, which at the time was a primarily Irish American neighborhood.

While across town Manilatown was devoured by the financial district, including the famous International Hotel unsuccessfully fought for survival, the Gran Oriente continued to provide an affordable home for Filipinos and South of Market was designated as a Filipino Historical District known as SoMa Pilipinas.

As South of Market property values skyrocketed over the years, the fraternal organization received numerous unsolicited, speculative purchase offers for the Gran Oriente Hotel. Community leaders wondered just how long the building could avoid being “gentrified” — sold on the private market, the units rehabbed and then leased at high rents.

“The Gran Oriente Hotel is a significant building to the Filipino community in San Francisco and for the South Park neighborhood,” said Supervisor Jane Kim. “It also provides 24 SRO units which provide critical affordable housing for the community.”

“I am honored to have worked with SoMa Pilipinas and Mission Housing over the last two years to facilitate its purchase through the Small Sites Program and ensure it remains a community-owned site.”

In meetings between the leadership of the Filipino Community Development Corporation, the Filipino-American Development Foundation, SOMA Pilipinas, the SOMA Stabilization Fund Community Advisory Committee and Mission Housing representatives, ideas were shared about how to honor the Filipino legacy of the building, and find a current and future co-ownership structure that involves the Filipino community.

The outcome: a Filipino organization will own or co-own the Gran Oriente by 2025.

Until then, Mission Housing  Development Corporation will be working with community members on rehabilitating the site, ensuring that all existing tenants remain, and utilizing the site for future community activism and support.

"I am committed to making sure that we invest more in small-site acquisition programs like this so that we can have incredible block parties where we are saving housing,” said Mayor Breed.

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