2022-23 JOHN NEAR GRANT Recipient
“We Won’t Move”: Grassroots Housing Activism in San Francisco’s Chinatown and Manilatown
Stephen Xia"We Won't Move": Grassroots Housing Activism
in San Francisco's Chinatown and Manilatown
Stephen Xia
2023 Near Scholar
Mentors: Dr. Chris Gatto and Ms. Amy Pelman
April 12, 2023
"We won't move!"
This was the resounding chant that echoed through Kearny Street on the night of August 4, 1977. Thousands of activists and community members had gathered there, linking arms in a human barricade to protect the tenants inside the International Hotel from eviction. (see fig. 1). This effort, however, was unsuccessful: the police ultimately broke the barricade, dragging those inside the building out into the street; many of them had nowhere to go.1 Even though footage from that night gave the battle for the I-Hotel widespread attention, the efforts by tenants and grassroots activists to protect this last remaining hub of the San Francisco Filipino community had already been underway for years.
The International Hotel primarily served elderly Filipino immigrants, who had created an enclave in and around the I-Hotel prior to the 1970s with thriving businesses and community
1 Chris Carlsson, Ten Years That Shook the City: San Francisco 1968 -1978 (San Francisco: City Lights Foundation Books, 2011), 126.
centers.2 However, as San Francisco emerged as an economic powerhouse along the West Coast, its business center, the downtown Financial District, began to rapidly expand, and the International Hotel was caught in its path.3 When the owner of the land, Milton Meyer & Company, attempted to evict the tenants, the resulting resistance eventually spiraled into a massive grassroots effort to preserve their home across many fronts. 4 This included confrontational demonstrations and protests, such as the one on the night of August 4, 1977, in which activists were ultimately unsuccessful in preventing police from entering the building.
Amid the backdrop of San Francisco's aggressive redevelopment campaign, the defense and subsequent demolition of the International Hotel stands out due to the fervent resistance from, and the wide network created by, tenants and activists. However, the International Hotel was not the only instance of grassroots housing activism in San Francisco during these tumultuous years. While activists in San Francisco from 1960 to 1990 improved housing conditions in the adjacent Chinatown, inherent geographic, political, financial, and legal disadvantages undermined similar grassroots efforts to save Manilatown's International Hotel.
The I-Hotel: "Manilatown's Last Stand"
The story of the International Hotel begins with the history of those who called it home: mostly elderly Filipino immigrants. These immigrants, who were part of the second large wave of Filipinos to arrive in the United States during the early twentieth century, filled the high demand for unskilled labor that had been created by anti-Chinese immigration restrictions,
2 Carlsson, 12.
3 Carlsson, 12.
4 Estella Habal, San Francisco's International Hotel: Mobilizing the Filipino American Community in the AntiEviction Movement (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007), xix.
namely, the Immigration Act of 1917.5 Prevented from owning land because they were considered nationals but not citizens, these immigrants were forced into the area that would later become Manilatown, between Chinatown and what grew into the burgeoning Financial District. 6 (see fig. 2). The International Hotel became the home of these migrants, providing both physical shelter and a center for the Filipino immigrant community, so much so that those of this older generation would be referred to by the endearing term manongs. This term came to represent the strength across generations that would aid activists in their anti-eviction crusade.7
5 Stephen E. Barton, "The Neighborhood Movement in San Francisco," Berkeley Planning Journal 2, nos. 1-2 (Spring 1985): 90.
6 Carlsson, Ten Years, 126.
7 Carlsson, 40.
However, the explosive growth of San Francisco in the postwar era gave rise to the Financial District's rapid expansion, as the city entered its own phase of "Manhattanization," or sprawling redevelopment. The owner of the I-Hotel, Milton Meyer & Company, sought to turn it into a more lucrative property by constructing a parking garage. 8 In 1968, when tenants were first given eviction notices, some chose to resist, picketing outside the building.9 However, it was not until other community members joined the cause that protests began to intensify.10 Eventually, the United Filipino Association (UFA), which was formed that same year and later evolved into the International Hotel Tenants Association (IHTA), became a central part of the effort to coordinate demonstrations and organize marches.11 Notably, these organizations were able to successfully negotiate a lease agreement with Milton Meyer & Company, temporarily ending the conflict in December 1968, one month before evictions were scheduled to occur. 12 Unfortunately, a fire of unknown origin in the building that left three tenants dead resulted in the company withdrawing from the contract on the grounds that the building was a safety hazard, thereby inciting further protest from activists.13 After continued resistance, and involvement from San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, the groups were able to negotiate a renewed agreement in 1969, once again temporarily pausing the risk of eviction. 14 However, Walter
8 Carlsson, 127.
9 Carlsson, 126.
10 Habal, San Francisco's International Hotel, xii.
11 Habal, xix.
12 Habal, xix.
13 Carlsson, Ten Years, 128.
14 Carlsson, 128.
Shorenstein, the head of Milton Meyer & Company, sold the building in 1973 to the Four Seas Investment Corporation, a shell company owned by foreign liquor baron Supasit Mahaguna.15 At this point, Four Seas began litigation to force eviction, and despite fervent opposition and protracted court cases, the fight ultimately culminated in the events of August 4, 1977.16 The small group of elderly tenants protesting outside the I-Hotel eventually grew into a massive force of activists, from Filipino-Americans to Chinese-Americans, from young college students to older generations, from those in the Chinatown area to labor groups and even Jim Jones (the infamous cult leader of the Peoples Temple), who at the time was a San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA) Commissioner with significant political influence. 17 This mobilization was explosive: the activists already numbered by the thousands in early stages of the movement.18 What is puzzling about the conflict, is the fact that the movement for the I-Hotel attracted support from myriad groups but ultimately was unable to overcome political forces and legal challenges to defend tenants from eviction. The amount of attention and support that UFA and IHTA created for the tenants would have pressured any company to reconsider further pursuit of redevelopment; Four Seas was undeterred. The explanation for this intractable attempt by Four Seas to pursue eviction has its background in San Francisco's rapidly shifting landscape and its redevelopment campaign.
15 Carlsson, 128.
16 Habal, San Francisco's International Hotel , xix.
17 James Sobredo, "The Battle for the International Hotel," FoundSF.
18 Sobredo.
Redevelopment Efforts in San Francisco
During World War II and the years following it, surging economic activity on the West Coast massively benefitted San Francisco, which emerged as a gateway for trade with the "Pacific Rim," attracting many big companies and financial institutions.19 To manage these growing industries, several organizations were created in the 1940s by business leaders to aid efforts to efficiently plan the city's rapid development, including the Bay Regional Council and the Blyth-Zellerbach Committee (BZC) in 1956.20 For instance, Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) was created by these organizations, initially intended to transport industrial laborers more efficiently. However, very quickly, developers began to realize that the current downtown space would be insufficient for the quickly expanding business district. Prevented from expanding north, west, or east due to geographic and economic limitations, corporations turned their eyes towards the southern Market Street area, which had the perfect condition for expansion: low-density, flat, and cheap land.21 However, South of Market was already occupied, namely by poor laborers who had been in high demand after the 1906 earthquake as well as during the war. As a result, they turned to the city government, which passed the 1949 Housing Act, enabling them to use eminent domain to begin capturing this land.22 This moment demonstrated the strength of connections that existed between downtown interests and city officials that would be pervasive throughout battles over land and housing in the following decades. Yet from the very beginning, developers and businesses quickly established the
19 Chester W. Hartman, City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisco (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002), 4-5.
20 Hartman, 6; Hartman, 8-10.
21 Hartman, 7-8.
22 Hartman, 7-8.
structures and bureaucracies necessary to coordinate among themselves and politicians, strongly influencing mayors, commissioners, and key agency leaders. For instance, take Mayor Joseph Alioto. When riots caused by redevelopment efforts and racial tensions led his predecessor, Mayor John Shelley, to resign in 1967 and Alioto to declare his candidacy immediately after, downtown forces had largely organized this transition.23 However, Alioto lacked the name recognition or labor support to secure the mayoralty, especially against his opponent Jack Morrison, who had significant labor endorsements. Nonetheless, he was able to win over key endorsements through connections with Shelley's aides and exchanging appointments to key positions to labor representatives.24 After his election later that year, he quickly announced plans for the Yerba Buena Center (YBC) in the South of Market area, precisely what the redevelopment coalition had desired.25 The successful influence that businesses had on this mayoral election reveals how closely linked developers were with the city government.
Considering that business leaders, South of Market and I-Hotel activists effectively orchestrated Alioto’s election would undoubtedly have faced difficulty in resisting a mayor who was so connected to downtown San Francisco.
San Francisco was uniquely equipped with several pull factors, one of them being its status as a growing hub, and officials did not have to provide as many benefits to downtown interests over residential neighborhood areas to the same extent as in other cities.26 However, as can be seen from Mayor Alioto's election, the campaign financing and support from business
23 Hartman, 26-27.
24 Hartman, 29-31.
25 Hartman, 31.
26 McGovern, The Politics of Downtown Development , 11.
interests could be pivotal.27 Developers often held sway over policy outside of elections: as referendums became a popular tool of both activists and the downtown, heavy media blitzes before voting dates often influenced the results.28 Overall, with control over existing bureaucratic systems and connections to city government, in redevelopment fights, developers and businesses always began with the upper hand. The primary tool of developers was the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRA). When Justin Herman was appointed as the director of SFRA, he expanded the agency, positioning it as a key part of dictating the redevelopment process. 29 His aggressive posture toward pushing out, in his mind, the "skid-row” or “slum,” residents in South of Market would alter the outcome of the expensive and lengthy YBC battle to follow. Initially, to avoid being forced to hold a public vote, Herman selected a single developer, which was a risky move due to the wide range of experience necessary for such a large project. His choice to further resist tenants' demands for suitable relocation as required by law, who adopted the same "we won't move" slogan that would later appear in the International Hotel protests, only compounded the risks in the YBC project.30 By the time the courts issued injunctions halting evictions on the Yerba Buena Center project planned in the South of Market area, damage had already been done: evictions through indirect means such as deteriorating conditions or bypassing posting eviction notices drove up rent in many places, and communities had already been separated. SFRA and
27 Hartman, City for Sale, 279.
28 Hartman, 373.
29 Hartman, 54.
30 San Francisco City Planning Commission and San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, "Yerba Buena Center: Environmental Impact Report. Final. Comments and Responses, Certification Resolutions," California Agencies, Paper 403, (1978): 22.
the tenants’ organization, Tenants and Owners in Opposition to Redevelopment (TOOR), were able to reach a satisfactory, albeit imperfect, agreement, but internal logistical conflicts between the SFHA, SFRA, and HUD prevented units from being allocated to displaced South of Market tenants.31 This was exacerbated by Herman's personal indignation towards the court's rulings, Judge Weigel, and TOOR, and as a result, he frequently delayed, disobeyed entirely, or, more often, found loopholes in order to prevent tenants from benefitting.32 This resulted in a complete deadlock, with construction being entirely halted even though progress had been made, meaning that tenants had lost massive parts of their community and homes while developers and the SFRA could not complete the project, resulting in massive waste.33 Overall, tenants were successful through efforts to organize at halting the YBC project, but were unable to obtain full protection from eviction and thus were still hurt by bureaucratic inadequacies and what appears to be deliberate malice or resistance on Herman's part.34
San Francisco's Chinatown
The Chinatown of San Francisco, much like the adjacent Manilatown, was a product of Chinese immigrants who had previously arrived before immigration restrictions during the Go ld Rush, with those who remained in the United States clustering around the Kearny Street area.35 Demand for labor at the time, like the transcontinental railroad project, drew in more immigrants,
31 Kessler and Hartman, "The Illusion," 450
32 Hartman, City for Sale, 96-99.
33 Robert P. Kessler and Chester W. Hartman, "The Illusion and the Reality of Urban Renewal: A Case Study of San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center," Land Economics 49, no. 4 (November 1973): 445; Hartman, City for Sale, 77-81.
34 Hartman, 81.
35 Connie Young Yu, "A History of San Francisco Chinatown Housing," Amerasia Journal 8, no. 1 (February 13, 1981): 94, accessed September 16, 2022, https://doi.org/10.17953/amer.8.1.xw713g02t2802540. .
causing Chinatown's economy to likewise expand, with its population reaching nearly 30,000 by the end of the century.36 Rising anti-Chinese sentiment and the Chinese Exclusion Act placed more pressure on immigrants and Chinatown.37 In response, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) emerged, serving as a legal representative for the community and even serving as a liaison with the Chinese government at the time, which helped to quash two different efforts by the San Francisco city government to displace Chinatown in order to use the potentially lucrative land.38 The legitimacy that the CCBA possessed through its ability to coordinate between key business leaders in Chinatown and other community leaders gave it leverage against the city government. These events resulted in Chinatown becoming an established, insulated community that was able to resist the city's efforts to displace the community on two occasions. However, due to the population of Chinatown surging due to the relaxation of immigration restrictions following World War II and simultaneous funding cuts from HUD, conditions deteriorated, opening a new set of challenges for the community.39 Systemic causes exacerbated these worsening conditions inside Chinatown. Problems in policing deeply influenced the youth in Chinatown during the postwar era, despite the area becoming a tourist attraction and public opinion of Chinese-Americans improving due to World War II.40 The attitude by police, felt by residents of Chinatown, seemed to be that the people of
36 Huping Ling and Allan W. Austin, Asian American History and Culture: An Encyclopedia (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2015), 147.
37 Ling and Austin, 148.
38 Ling and Austin, 150.
39 Howard, More Than Shelter, 107.
40 Harry Chuck and Josh Chuck, dirs., Chinatown Rising , produced by James Q. Chan, 2019.
Chinatown were not important and that the only objective was to protect outsiders and tourists. 41 Deprived of resources and facing poorer conditions, many youth turned to gangs, causing violence to rise in Chinatown. This trend culminated in the Golden Dragon Massacre in 1977, perpetrated by gang members attempting to assassinate rival gang leaders, that left five dead, all of whom were bystanders, and decimated the tourism industry of Chinatown and therefore the health of Chinatown as a whole.42 It took deep community activism and persistent involvement from mostly college students in order to root out these systemic problems through organized systems to fill in the gaps that the official city government left behind, such as policing and education, and especially securing and protecting housing for elderly and low-income community members. Despite this, it is an oversimplification to depict the Chinatown community as a monolith even despite representative bodies like the CCBA. Elderly, youth, and new immigrants often conflicted over certain issues, and it took significant work to disseminate information within the community to ensure that individuals were on-board to present a unified front, which was key in the later Ping Yuen fight.43 The efficacy of these efforts can be attributed to activists' unrelenting efforts to create internal support structures for the community by providing services which would have been otherwise unavailable, as these resources could only have been directed to those who needed them if a strong system existed to create widespread awareness inside Chinatown.
41 Chuck and Chuck.
42 Chuck and Chuck ; Andrew R. Szeto, "Asian American Property Politics: The International Hotel and Critiques of Property Rights in San Francisco" ( Master's Thesis, San Francisco State University, 2020), 95.
43 Szeto, 95; Justin K H. Tse, "Liberal Protestant Chinatown Social Gospel Geographies in Chinese San Francisco," Chinese America: History and Perspectives, 2015, 87; L. A. Chung, "Large Crowd Turns Out for Chinatown Hearing," San Francisco Chronicle , May 3, 1985, 29.
Housing in Chinatown: Ping Yuen and Mei Lun Yuen
The Ping Yuen public housing project, initiated in Chinatown in 1939 and opened in 1951, intended to address the deteriorating conditions and increasing rates of disease and crime at the time. Community members had already tried unsuccessfully to lobby city officials to provide new public housing. It was only after then-First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited Chinatown, witnessed the poor sanitation, and cramped living spaces that the Chinatown Housing Bill was signed into law, enabling construction to proceed. 44 (see fig. 3). While prior negotiations and demonstrations may have played a role in her choice to visit Chinatown, it is nonetheless clear that her visit was the key factor that enabled Ping Yuen's existence, demonstrating the value of propagating awareness of poor conditions and necessity to both the public outside the community and key figures with political influence.
However, after its successful construction and opening, Ping Yuen quickly gained notoriety, as restricted funding in the sixties meant that improvements were not being made to the building while gang violence concurrently plagued the area. The building's decay continued until the murder of tenant Julia Wong in 1978 sparked resistance from tenants, who began to organize by forming the Ping Yuen Residents Improvement Association (PYRIA). The creation of this organization facilitated the use of an escrow to begin rent strikes to leverage resources from SFHA. This financial pressure was clearly effective: tenants obtained some limited results since Eneas Kane, the director of SFHA, was more willing to cooperate and negotiate with tenants than the previous director, John Beard.45 However, previous politicization and scandals had diminished SFHA's ability to maintain public trust and thereby the agency's ability to assist tenants. For instance, Beard had previously opted to delay entire projects and sacrifice funding rather than comply with demands from the Board of Supervisors to desegregate housing.46
Beard's choices to resist the Board's orders exacerbated the already massive hurdles blocking urgently needed funding for other projects. These issues were only compounded by the SFRA's concurrent pressure on other low-income housing throughout the city, driving up the demand for public housing and stretching out the resources of SFHA further.
As a result, residents could not rely solely on SFHA's aid, so the Board of Supervisors became the next focus for activists seeking to improve conditions in Ping Yuen and Chinatown at large. To do so, community leadership, effectively PYRIA, disseminated information to
45 Howard, More Than Shelter, 24; In fact, Ping Yuen has been related to several cases of corruption inside the SFHA, even in more recent times. Kane was accused of embezzling city funds, while Julie Lee resigned from the SFHA in 2005 for misappropriating state funds (originally intended f or Ping Yuen) for a political campaign. For more, see SF Weekly Staff, "Fall Gal," SF Weekly, November 22, 2006, and Frank O'Mea and Norman Melnick, "Embezzlement Rap for Ex-Housing Chief," S.F. Examiner (San Francisco, CA), October 6, 1977, 4.
46 Howard, More Than Shelter, 14-15.
community members to strengthen ties between distinct groups. They were successful in obtaining approval for upgrades to Ping Yuen, which can be attributed to several factors. Firstly, tenants actively rallied to gather the attention of both the public and those inside Chi natown to build coalitions and support each other during rent strikes. As a result, during pivotal meetings of the Board, hundreds of elderly tenants were physically present in the room. During those meetings, it became clear that Supervisors were completely unaware of the conditions. 47 Secondly, by connecting the plight of Chinatown residents to those outside the area, activists were able to gain concessions from the Board of Supervisors and overcome objections from the white Nob Hill area. For instance, they argued that the improvements would greatly reduce the chance of rampant disease from spreading, which, unlike the residents of Chinatown, would not be largely contained inside Chinatown, and drive up tourism income, a boon for the whole city.48
These arguments were strengthened by visual evidence presented by Harry Chuck, a ChineseAmerican photographer who had recorded poor living conditions, which undoubtedly played a role in influencing key votes.49 Because the Supervisors had not been previously made aware of the conditions, and by extension, the threat to public health, dissemination of this information was pivotal. A third factor assisting activists was the abatement of negative racial views towards Chinese Americans: they argued that they had sufficiently assimilated to American middle-class ideals, making the city more likely to acquiesce. 50 The faux Chinese American architecture of Ping Yuen would have only reinforced this notion. The triumphs and methods used by activists
47 Howard, 105.
48 Yu, 100.
49 Chuck and Chuck, Chinatown Rising .
50 Howard, More Than Shelter, 108.
first seeking to finish Ping Yuen's construction and later to improve the quality of life of its tenants paved the way later for activists involved with Mei Lun Yuen in Chinatown and the International Hotel, for two reasons. First, because the existence of organizational structures such as PYRIA enabled more rapid communication throughout the community, it became easier to mobilize support for Mei Lun Yuen and the I-Hotel. Additionally, the experience that many activists gained during Ping Yuen would play a role in these future battles. Like Ping Yuen, Mei Lun Yuen was a potential senior housing project proposed in 1972 at the intersection of Stockton and Sacramento streets as part of a broader redevelopment project for dilapidated areas of Chinatown.51 At this time, however, federal funding that had originally been allocated for the construction of Mei Lun Yuen was rescinded due to cuts to the HUD budget, and although activists demonstrated in front of the local HUD office and attracted some media attention, HUD did not reallocate the funding.52 Upon further demonstrations and negotiations with representatives for Chinatown under the CCBH (Chinatown Coalition for Better Housing) and inviting a private developer in order to cover some costs, activists were able to push the project through initial stages of approval. While opposition from Nob Hill over concerns of obstructed views and undesired traffic to the area also complicated the project, similar techniques that had been established during Ping Yuen were able to overcome these objections.53 (see fig. 4).
However, the trends of redevelopment inside Chinatown also had its own potential consequences: another project, named Orangeland, was intended to provide additional senior housing combined with commercial development. 54 This project demonstrated the resulting effects of internal strife: Because of the nature of the plan, two distinct groups inside Chinatown were pitted against each other. Immigrant families who lived in the targeted area for redevelopment sought to keep their homes, while the elderly, who faced difficulty finding housing even after Mei Lun Yuen's construction, needed additional units.55 As a result,
Orangeland eventually failed.56 Thus, it is clear that unity among varying groups inside Chinatown, attention from the media and public, and ability to convince officials of direct costs to themselves were all integral factors in grassroots activists' successes in obtaining more public housing.
The International Hotel
In October 1968, Milton Meyer & Company issued its first eviction notice to the tenants of the International Hotel. While many stayed behind to resist, many also left the I-Hotel to find low-income housing in other areas, fearing the possible costs of resisting, taking with them small community-run businesses and centers that were central to the Manilatown ecosystem. 57 This underscores one inherent advantage that Walter Shorenstein held: the targets of eviction were low-income, elderly laborers, which left them with fewer options and limited ability to sustain a protracted anti-eviction effort. Even those who remained had few options: a newspaper that reported on the initial demonstrations described them as "resigned" in comparison to the fiery outburst of college-student protests during the 60s and 70s.58 The older demographic of the IHotel would have made them easier to push aside during redevelopment, since the tenants would be less willing and able to resist.
This is not to say, however, that the background of student activism during this time was a liability for I-Hotel tenants. Their cause quickly attracted many Asian-American youth, including from Chinatown, transforming the area into a new center of operations for tens of
56 Li, 39.
57 Habal, San Francisco’s International Hotel , 33.
58 Habal, 33.
thousands of grassroots activists.59 This unified identity was also a strength: with cooperation between older and younger generations, the I-Hotel cause did not suffer from the internal divisions that often challenged other housing movements or counterculture protests, which were solely youth-aligned.60 This initial outburst of support was initially enough for Shorenstein to enter into a deal to suspend eviction.61 The swift nature of this agreement, which occurred only two months after initial eviction orders, delineates the power of activists' demonstrations. During this initial stage of the anti-eviction movement, activists were able to obtain a temporary lease agreement. When this agreement expired, however, Shorenstein promptly sold the building to the Four Seas Investment Corporation. Yet the momentum activists had already created enabled Mayor Moscone to propose a plan to purchase the land under eminent domain, a plan that was successful in most of its stages of approval due to public support convincing many key officials, but was ultimately abandoned due to legal challenges.62 At this point, the fight had already spilled over onto an additional front: the court system. Four Seas had challenged SFHA's attempt to carry out Moscone's plan, beginning years of legal battles over the validity of the relevant eviction orders and eminent domain rights.63 The jury itself deadlocked on its decision, but ultimately, Judge Ira A. Brown handed the decision in favor of Four Seas, which was then appealed up to the State Supreme Court.64
59 Habal, 2.
60 Habal, 2-3.
61 Carlsson, Ten Years, 128.
62 Habal, San Francisco’s International Hotel , 92-94.
63 Four Seas Investment Corporation v. International Hotel Tenants' Association, 81 Cal. App. 3d 604 (Cal. Ct. App. 1978).
64 Four Seas Investment Corporation v. International Hotel Tenants' Association.
Meanwhile, political battles continued as Moscone, the SFHA, and the Board of Supervisors continued working to push through the plan. However, pushback from downtown interests in the form of Proposition B, which aimed to recall almost all of San Francisco's top elected officials, pushed Moscone further away from cooperation with the IHTA, even though the proposition was defeated.65 As a result, he did not consent to a revised version of the original plan that was proposed by the IHTA, leaving no alternatives when it failed. Moscone's hesitancy to negotiate a new deal when courts invalidated the original eminent domain plan signaled the power of the political threat by downtown business leaders, which had not been used against Moscone specifically, but nonetheless was effective. It is in these political battles that movements in Chinatown and Manilatown begin to diverge: the introduction of a separate financial incentive in the form of business redevelopment influenced key officials to act differently, in turn creating reverberating effects that changed the outcomes activists were able to achieve.
San Francisco Politics: Larger Forces at Play
The memory of the International Hotel is preserved with the activists that sought to protect it, and likewise, its history has been told primarily by them. However, as can be seen in Chinatown, the actions of activists alone are insufficient in explaining the complex results of grassroots housing activism; it is critical to consider other parties involved: landowners and government officials. For the case of the International Hotel, the wide variety of groups that gathered to fight for tenants leading up to and on the night of eviction seems to disprove the notion that obtaining a certain volume of support and community unity is enough to create change, like in Chinatown. 65 Habal, San Francisco’s International Hotel , 133.
While Walter Shorenstein was willing to concede the battle over eviction by selling ownership of the land, the man he sold the I-Hotel to, Supasit Mahaguna, was more determined to conduct redevelopment. Information on Mahaguna and his company, Four Seas, was sparse, suggesting one advantage he held: anonymity, making him more impervious to damaging public attention.66 Furthermore, he was never present in court cases, and reportedly only one photograph was ever taken of him during the entire anti-eviction battle.67 Shorenstein, on the other hand, as a Recreation and Parks Commissioner, would have been far more wary of negative attention. Only after investigations by members of the IHTA did much of the information available on Mahaguna's background surface, and his personal background significantly influenced his manner in dealing with activists. United States intelligence had identified him as the personal secretary to the president of the National Legislative Assembly of Thailand.68 As a result, Mahaguna would have been familiar with dealing with unrest ruthlessly. Furthermore, he had incredible wealth as a prominent liquor baron, with direct ties to military officials and police officers.69 Concurrently, however, political instability in Thailand during the same time as the battle over the International Hotel would have jeopardized the security of his wealth. As a result, Four Seas, his shell company, was relentless in pursuing eviction during the I-Hotel and purchased many other properties throughout California and the Manilatown area.70 Shorenstein, by comparison, was in a far more comfortable position to sell the land at a discount and abandon the conflict.
66 Carlsson, Ten Years, 128.
67 Carlsson, 128.
68 Habal, San Francisco’s International Hotel , 78.
69 Habal, 78.
70 Habal, 78.
Mahaguna's personal economic interests were not the only confounding factor activists faced. Supervisor Feinstein, who would succeed Mayor Moscone after his assassination in 1978, was very close to landlords: Notably, she held up strong opposition to an anti-speculation ordinance proposed by Supervisor Harvey Milk, and the ordinance never passed. 71 Her tenure on the Board of Supervisors and her mayoral policies clearly demonstrated her pro-development stance and can be explained by her close ties to San Francisco's downtown interests, many of whom were donors.72 However, her involvement in the International Hotel is more convoluted, as she was one of the supervisors who ultimately supported Moscone's original plan that would have protected tenants from eviction.73 What is known, however, is that City Attorney George Agnost, under the direction of Feinstein, later threatened the Board of Supervisors by refusing to defend them if they did not comply with a court order to sign off on a demolition permit for the land post-eviction.74 A similar threat had earlier been levied against Sheriff Hongisto, who had previously refused to carry out eviction and subsequently was faced with the possibility of personal liability on the order of a million dollars.75 While jail time for contempt of court may have convinced Hongisto to comply with court orders, it seems far more likely that an underlying financial threat was the driving force behind his transition from defiance to leading the charge against the human barricade on August 4th, 1977. (see fig. 5) As the individual in charge of the
71 Carlsson, Ten Years, 162.
72 James Brook, Chris Carlsson, and Nancy J. Peters, Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, Culture (San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books, 1998), 291.
73 Habal, San Francisco’s International Hotel , 92-94.
74 Bruce B. Brugmann, "The Week They Tried to W reck San Francisco," San Francisco Bay, January 10, 1979, 4.
75 Brugmann, 7.
physical act of eviction, the pressure placed on him constituted the final blow to activists' hopes of preventing eviction.
Finally, Judge Byron Arnold, responsible for the key case where Four Seas objected to Moscone's plan, also may have had ties with Milton Meyer & Company and only later recused himself upon the publication of an exposé.76 This confluence of intertwining pressures and incentives, mainly financial, elucidates why the International Hotel activists faced a far greater challenge than those in Chinatown, and subsequently, why eviction was ultimately carried out.
The common thread between these campaigns by activists South of Market, in Chinatown, and Manilatown to either stave off eviction attempts, or lobby city government or agencies is the need for unity, which commonly took the form of dedicated tenant organizations. These organizations ensured that community groups were informed and could present a cohesive front, improving their chances of success. The case of Orangeland is a perfect example: it pitted two groups against each other and failed. Furthermore, by connecting their plight to the incentives of officials with power, whether it be political power or fiscal interests, activists were able to successfully obtain funding and approval. However, in the International Hotel antieviction battle, activists faced far greater challenges and were unable to prevent Four Seas from destroying the building due to a complex network of incentives that were much harder to unravel and use to their advantage. For instance, political turmoil overseas in Thailand certainly confounded efforts as it undoubtedly played a role in Mahaguna's tenacious pursuit of eviction through the courts. Furthermore, Manilatown's location bordering downtown San Francisco made it a prime target of expanding redevelopment efforts, and while activists were able to obtain some political leverage their demands did not align with the incentives of key officials. While the grassroots efforts to defend the I-Hotel did not prevent eviction, those and other activists around the city still made significant impacts.
Beginning in the late 1980s, Mayor Feinstein and SFRA began transitioning towards more progressive and inclusionary housing policies, suggesting that the decades of prior activism had gradually shifted public perceptions.77 This has manifested in several ways, most prominent of which is the increase in understanding of the hidden consequences of urban renewal and redevelopment. The SFRA no longer exists today, and the results of its aggressive efforts on
minority and low-income communities, such as the primarily African- and Japanese American Fillmore district, has been better understood in the years since. 78
In the context of shortages of affordable housing in San Francisco, California, and in the country at large, contemporary society is reckoning with the consequences of past and current housing policies. From addressing the role of discriminatory zoning in environmental racism to unaffordable rents, the stories of Ping Yuen and Mei Lun Yuen in Chinatown and the International Hotel can reveal much about the nature of interactions between the legal system, politicians, developers, activists, and community members that remain true today, such as with the case of opposition to new student housing projects by the University of California, Berkeley. Josh Chuck, the filmmaker behind Chinatown Rising, left these final thoughts for viewers: the people in Chinatown and likewise those involved in the efforts to protect the International Hotel did not consider themselves to be professional advocates or have any experience in activism; nonetheless, they did everything they could to make a better place for themselves and those around them.79 Thus, despite the evictions being ultimately carried out, the continued attention and pressure on city officials led to the creation of IHCAC by Mayor Feinstein, which blocked Four Seas from commercializing the land and enabled construction of a new I-Hotel dedicated to low-income housing.80 Today, the resurrected International Hotel Manilatown Center serves as a community center and cultural heritage site for Filipino-Americans and as a living historical document, preserving the history of the International Hotel.
78 Jay Barmann, "SF Redevelopment Agency Successor Seeks to Make Good on Building 5,800 Affordable Units," SFist, January 3, 2020.
79 Josh Chuck, videoconference interview by the author, Burlingame Library, July 7, 2022.
80 International Hotel Senior Housing, Inc. Board of Directors, International Hotel's Final Victory (2010), 9-10.
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