Victory for the International Hotel! (part 2 of 2)

The young Asian American revolutionaries had made the I-Hotel the primary development issue in the city over the eight years that they fought off eviction. Marches, demonstrations, law suits, legislation, renovations were all part of the struggle. At one point, five thousand people formed a human chain in a show of force.

Impossible to Build
The intensity of this struggle created a political conciousness among the people of San Francisco that prevented the Four Seas Corporation, the owner of the I-Hotel, from progressing in plans for commercial development. The thousands of activists that participated were eventually distilled into a group around the Kearney Street Housing Corporation, a citizen advisory committee. This body stood guard over the legacy of the I-Hotel as a site for affordable housing.

On the other hand, they could not resurrect the I-Hotel. Over the next seventeen years, Four Seas Corporation refused to sell the site to the Housing Corporation. Only when St. Mary's stepped in as a potential buyer did Four Seas sell.

Crime and Inspiration
The struggle over the I-Hotel has resulted in victory for Asian American working people, particularly Pilipino Americans. It is affordable housing for Pilipino Manongs and Chinatown elderly (Chinatown is adjacent to the I-Hotel) in a city that is increasingly unaffordable except for the rich. What it took in human effort and endurance to achieve a basic human need was a crime. What it testifies to in the ideals and spirit of the Asian American Movement of the past and the persistence of those values by a small group of activists into the present is an inspiration.