Disputing “Fact-Checking History of San Francisco's Manilatown”
/Here's M.T. Ojeda's original article: https://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/fact-checking-the-history-of-san-franciscos-manilatown
In the 1950s and 1960s, redevelopment plans of city centers (commercial and mixed-use areas) occurred throughout the United States, breaking up and sometimes erasing whole communities where people of color lived. During that period in San Francisco, the Black community in the Fillmore fought and lost their housing struggle, coining their displacement, “Negro Removal.” In the South of Market area, white working class and Filipinos were removed from city centers (although they were able to gain some low-incoming housing by fighting back). Manilatown was next on the agenda of the City Supervisors and the Mayor for the complete removal of what remained in Manilatown, composed of the tenants of the International Hotel and the Asian Community Storefronts.
Numbers don’t reveal the whole story. Let’s take the first category of “The Myth of 30,000 Filipinos.” Vox probably used that number from the total number of migrants to California in the United States, and conflated that to San Francisco’s Manilatown. In my book, San Francisco’s International Hotel: Mobilizing the Filipino American Community in the Anti-Eviction Movement” (Temple, 2007) I use the number of 10,000, based on the distribution of Filipinos on the West Coast.
Residents and supporters rally in front of the I-Hotel to stop its shutdown in 1977 (Photo by Crystal Huie. Source: Manilatown Heritage Foundation/Filipinas Magazine, October, 2002)
Bruno Lasker, a sociologist in the 1930s, reiterated the claim of 30,000. The small number of Filipinos cited by Ojeda that numbered 2,000, reveals residents living in stable housing. While some Filipinos resided in cities, most were itinerant farm laborers who migrated to cities after harvesting crops and went back to industrial farms in California, and migrating as far as Alaska fishing industries. Some were in the merchant marines and used the International Hotel as their home base while they sailed the world. This suggests that these were not their permanent residences. The 10,000 number was an educated guess as well as oral histories from the Manong Generation, which students from Third World Strikes at SF State and UC Berkeley compiled in their community study course at the International Hotel. It is not a far cry to think that this Filipino migratory population may have bunked together in a room in residential hotels. How do you count those?
Ojeda states that it was unlikely that Manilatown stretched for ten blocks along Kearny Street, citing evidence of offices and retail establishments. Most Filipinos did not have the capital to own or even operate businesses, and there were fewer residential hotels approaching Market Street, although Filipinos did frequent boxing rings and retail stores in that area. 'However, by the 1940s and 60s Kearny Street was bustling with Filipino-owned restaurants, pool halls, and barbershops. 'Manilatown was indeed coined in 1968 by an elderly community activist, Joaquin Legaspi, at the time when other minority communities and groups were naming their own communities and themselves. Before then, it was commonly known as “Kearny Street,” the population of which was fluid, depending on the seasons.
So Manilatown was a place of refuge. It’s not an accident either that it is a sliver next to Chinatown. The Chinese Community had also been fighting against their removal. By the late 1940s, after WWII, Filipino families moved to other residential areas like the Western Edition, Richmond and Sunset Districts in San Francisco, many moved to the Santa Clara Valley as well. Filipinos began to dig their roots in areas that were affordable, living mostly in multi-racial neighborhoods. The 1940 Census shows that 40% of the total Filipino population lived in cities, because families preferred to live in residential areas.
Her questioning of “Vigilante groups” is most appalling. News media did not highlight pictures of the terror upon communities of color, especially at that time. It is only today, after the George Floyd murder, was mainstream media forced to show these atrocities. Oral histories told generation after generation to community activists revealed this was exactly what happened. Riots against Filipinos happened during the height of the surge of Filipino migration between 1928-1930. The events of the Great Depression contributed to it. But yes, these riots occurred in the farming communities where whites lived. Those were probably the only pictures that Vox could find of anti-Filipino terror.
How does lowering the number of Filipinos living in Manilatown and other residential neighborhoods “flatten out” the history of the first-generation of Filipino immigrants? The Manongs built a community despite racism, preventing the early Filipino community from being rendered totally invisible. The existence of Manilatown and the resistance of the International Hotel tenants are major stories of the Filipino community, the housing movement, and the struggle for human rights.
In conclusion, we praise Ms. Ojeda in her endeavor to “set the record” straight by making sure the facts are accurate. On Kearny Street Filipinos were transient, coming and going, creating a fluid population rather than permanent residents. When it comes to revealing social and political dynamics, we believe that one needs to consider categories, such as transient and permanent populations, especially when it involves the fluidity of immigrants to the shores of the U.S.
The social and political environment that the Manong Generation faced was harsh, and very brutal by the continued assaults of racism in employment, housing, and even marriage. It is no big surprise then that the formations of Filipino enclaves pop up along the West Coast and further north to Alaska. They formed because of self-preservation, out of solidarity, and a common language and cultural customs. As stated earlier, the populations of these enclaves fluctuated given the needs of US labor, and even the geographic boundaries expanded and contracted as Filipino laborers came and went. Their stories have just recently been told, handed to us, and we in turn shall pass their stories to the generation that comes after us. These Manongs and Manangs left us a legacy of a rich and vibrant struggle. And it is our hope the oral histories of those that came before us play an important role in understanding the formation of Manilatown.
Estella Habal, Ph.D., is a Professor Emerita of Asian American Studies, Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Science, San Jose State University.
Jeanette Lazam was a 1977 tenant activist and current tenant at the International Hotel. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Manilatown Heritage Foundation.
M.T. Ojeda Responds
Elderly evicted tenants of the I-Hotel in 1977 (Photo by Nancy Wong/Wikimedia Commons)
I thank Prof. Estella Habal and Jeanette Lazam for taking time to read and comment on my article, “Fact-Checking the History of San Francisco’s Manilatown.” Their feedback is a passionate retelling of the International Hotel struggle and the plight of the manongs who lived in the I-Hotel and along the Kearny Street corridor. Indeed, the I-Hotel is a powerful story that has dominated the history of the Filipino American community in San Francisco for almost half a century and justifiably so.
The focus of my article, however, is not the story of the I-Hotel and the struggle to save it and prevent the erasure of Manilatown. It was an attempt to correct a mischaracterization of the emerging Filipino American community in San Francisco and to provide a data-driven alternative. I contend that exaggerations and historical inaccuracies only serve to undermine the Filipino American narrative of struggle against injustices.
Such inaccuracies include Prof. Habal and Ms. Lazam’s claim that “Bruno Lasker, a sociologist in the 1930s, reiterated the claim of 30,000.” Lasker, in fact, wrote: “Moreover, there is some confusion in some estimates between the city proper and its surrounding region, with the result that for San Francisco (and Bay Region) estimates vary from 2,000 to 20,000 . . .” from footnote 3, page 21 in Bruno Lasker, Filipino Immigration to Continental United States and to Hawaii, reprinted edition (New York: Arno Press, 1969 [1931]). Note that Lasker was referring to the number of Filipinos in San Francisco (and Bay Region), and certainly not to ten blocks of Kearny Street.
I state in my article the importance of telling the story of the I-Hotel. However, continuing to overstate the size of Manilatown and claiming that Filipinos could only live within its boundaries is inaccurate since Filipinos have been settling in other San Francisco neighborhoods since 1900.
Furthermore, I maintain that artificially enlarging the boundaries of Manilatown does not make sense, as there is no evidence of their living, working, and providing services or goods on those added blocks that were supposedly part of Manilatown. Kearny Street, as I state in my article – size notwithstanding – was the commercial heart of the Filipino community.
I note in my article that racism is complex, and I do not deny the violence wrought on Filipinos in many parts of California. I show that pioneering Filipinos in San Francisco fought for their rights, that they were resilient and asserted their agency to be a part of society by settling in neighborhoods outside of Kearny Street despite the continuing racism and discrimination. This was borne out of data.That is why Filipinos back then mostly settled in integrated and working-class neighborhoods graded “hazardous” or “declining” in assessing risk for federal home loan mortgages.
The research findings I share in my article do not purport to replace oral history. Each line in Census enumeration sheets, however, is like a personal story for it includes a name, an address, an age, marital status, schooling, place of birth and language spoken, nationality and citizenship, occupation, even earnings among other details. And collectively, these records provide context to oral accounts.
Documents such as Census records and city directories are not perfect. They are mere snapshots in time. However, they are paper trails of reliable and systematically collected information that should be explored as a way out of guesswork in the Filipino American narrative.
I stand by my article, and I will continue to push for a fuller, accurate and nuanced history of Filipino Americans, not only in San Francisco but the rest of the country. The readers of Positively Filipino can discern whether my research findings deserve merit or if educated guesses will suffice. They can decide whether my article denigrates the manongs or justifies the erasure of Manilatown.