Day 108: Gran Oriente Filipino Hotel, San Francisco, California
📌APIA Every Day (108) - Situated in San Francisco, California, the Gran Oriente Filipino Hotel is a three-story-over-basement rooming house at 104-106 South Park, constructed in 1907. In the 1920s, as Filipino men began arriving in California (Filipino women were not allowed entry until the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws in 1948), a group of 40 pooled their money and purchased the property for $6000. Their acquisition followed the passage of the Luce-Celler Act in 1946, which allowed Filipinos who had arrived in the US prior to 1934 to naturalize and subsequently purchase property in California.
Named after Gran Oriente in honor of their fraternity in the Philippines, the 24-room hotel served as a meeting place and provided an affordable, flexible housing option for Filipinos, who were often away at sea or traveling throughout the San Joaquin Valley or along the West Coast in search of seasonal agricultural work. By 1940, the Gran Oriente in the United States had 700 members, with lodges throughout California, Hawaii, and in the cities of Seattle, Phoenix, New York, and Newark. For over eight decades, the Gran Oriente Filipino hotel offered a space to live, socialize, and celebrate Filipino culture amidst significant national and international political and demographic changes and local neighborhood gentrification.
With the demolition of Manilatown in 1977, the closure of dozens of Filipino residential hotels in San Francisco, and the effects of gentrification in the neighborhood, the resident population of the Gran Oriente Filipino Hotel began to dwindle. Concerns about the hotel’s continuity sparked discussions within the Filipino community regarding who would be the next owner. However, in 2018, Mission Housing Development Corporation, a nonprofit dedicated to creating and preserving high-quality affordable housing for low- and moderate-income families, acquired the property. To honor the legacy of the Filipino men who purchased the building, along with the flourishing Filipino community in the area, the nonprofit worked in conjunction with SOMCAN, SOMA Pilipinas, and the Filipino Community Development Corporation. A year later, in 2019, the Gran Oriente Filipino Hotel was nominated for the National Register of Historic Places with support from the APIAHiP board directors for its listing.
LEARN MORE:
San Francisco Heritage: Landmark Tuesdays: Gran Oriente Filipino Hotel
Positively Filipino: From Here To Fraternity: The Gran Oriente Filipino Hotel
Somcan: A Century of Resistance: The Gran Oriente
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