Wei Min Bao newspaper, 1977. Residential hotel tenants presented demands on the steps of the Chinese Six Companies on Stockton Street in San Francisco. It was one of many incidents sparked by the long-running fight by the International Hotel tenants to resist eviction. And on a deeper level, the event showed how feelings and attitudes that run underneath the surface could emerge in a dramatic way -- given the right conditions and support.

Transforming Student Elites Into Community Activists: A Legacy of Asian American Activism

By Harvey Dong

[In 1977,] tenants [of the International Hotel] organized a press conference and protest against the Chinese Six Companies. The whole front steps of their headquarters on Stockton Street in San Francisco were taken over by tenants from one of their buildings. One of the owners was Foo Hum, President of the Chinatown Anti-Communist League. Tenants read their statements condemning the Six Companies for being bad landlords, demanded changes, and announced lawsuits and rent strikes.

You could never imagine things like that happening during the '50s. And it was happening at the grassroots, with elderly and people from the International Hotel movement involved in their own hotel organizations, with young people from the Asian Community Center taking part. Those kinds of activities were a very significant change, even a radical change, not relying on the old traditional Chinatown leadership but creating new forms of organization.

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