This collection contains items related to the organizing efforts to keep residents in the International Hotel, which was a residential hotel in San Francisco’s Manilatown neighborhood housing mostly Filipino and Chinese low-income seniors. The Four Seas Corporation bought the hotel and in 1968 began seeking to evict the residents in order to build a parking lot on the site. Residents organized and struggled to stay in their homes from 1968-1977. Final evictions were carried out in 1977 aided by local government and law enforcement. Continued community organizing after eviction prevented the owner from constructing his planned development, even after the building was demolished in 1981.

This collection includes flyers, pamphlets, legal documents, tenant association by-laws, internal strategy notes, a draft manuscript and newspaper clippings addressing a two year time period from 1976-1978. Materials from the year prior to eviction document the creation and work of the International Hotel Tenants Association (IHTA), communication between IHTA committees, interaction with supporting activist organizations from outside the I-Hotel community, and communication with city officials. The year following eviction includes the sustained efforts of the IHTA and other organizations to prevent the demolition of the building and to return the residents to the hotel, including the campaign to pass a local proposition to save the hotel, and actions to physically block demolition.

Finding Aid: http://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC63_scans/63.FindingAidInternationalHotel.pdf