STAND UP: An Archive Collection of the Bay Area Asian American Movement 1968-1974

By Asian Community Center Archive Group

Stand Up chronicles the beginning of the Bay Area Asian American movement through an unprecedented collection of period newspaper articles and documents. The book includes primary documents and analysis of the Asian American movement from the perspective of its participants. From the Third World Liberation Front student strikes at San Francisco State College and University of California Berkeley campuses, to the formation of the Asian American Political Alliance, this book traces the origins of student concerns and follows the movement into the Asian American communities, by focusing on the International Hotel tenants fight against eviction and the formation of the Asian Community Center in San Francisco Chinatown-Manilatown.

Praise for Stand Up

"The Asian American Movement of the 1960s-70s has been largely ignored by those who have researched and written about the civil rights and social justice movements of those turbulent decades. Asian Community Center Archive Group has done an excellent job of compiling the key documents that give us a historical overview of issues and organizations that contributed to the emergence of the Asian American Movement. Most importantly, it will be an important organizational tool for today's activists in their efforts to educate youth in their communities about the historic role Asian Americans have played in our nation's history of struggles for racial/ethnic and social justice." --Carlos Munoz, Jr., author of "Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement"

"Once I began reading it, I couldn't stop till I finished it. The "Conclusion" was insightfully summed-up. Every Asian American activist should read it. It should make us proud and motivate us to continue as new issues crop up." --Yuri Kochiyama (March 16, 2009)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eastwind Books of Berkeley
• Release date: Jun 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9780996351775

Book preview

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Asian Community Center Archive Group expresses great appreciation for the help and support given this project from the following: Carl Angel, Richard Aoki, C. Chan, Jade Cho, Maurice Chuck, Jeanie Dere, William Dere, Harvey Dong, Susan Fang, James Hsu, Mary Uyematsu Kao, Keith Kojimoto, Him Mark Lai, Bill Lee, Steven Louie, Al Robles, Bea Tam, Marilyn Wong, Steve Wong, and Victoria Wong.

INTRODUCTION

You hadda be there. The Sixties and Seventies, I mean. You had to be there, sensing the world turning upside down. It wasn’t remote or academic at all. On our TVs and in our newspapers we witnessed Asian faces rising up to finish off the latest colonial occupation. An entire quarter of humanity, once dismissed as clinging to a colorful past while waiting for some foreign missionary power to take it under its protection, had now stood up, an enormous Red banner of self-determination. Every American guy graduating high school stared right into the gun barrel of the military draft and had to decide for himself what the world was about and where he stood in it. Political assassinations that shocked the nation and sparked frightening riots happened right here in our own cities. There was no irony in a militant Black Power salute or a gentle wave of Peace, man. It was real. Then, as now, oppression breeds resistance. In the spirit of those tumultuous times, we present this collection. From these stories, old photos and artifacts we see stepping stones being laid down for advancing the peoples’ causes still being fought. Our corner of the world was the San Francisco Bay Area and we begin in 1968.

—B. Lee 2008

ASIAN COMMUNITY CENTER ARCHIVE GROUP PROJECT

The Asian Community Center Archive Group put together this collection of reprinted newspaper articles, mimeographed pamphlets and black and white photographs from the period. We hope to document this unique movement by letting the reader peruse the original writings and concerns of that time. Our collection was donated from the personal keepsakes of many individuals who saved the materials for forty years, preserving their collections for historical value. The contents of the reprinted materials have been duplicated for the reader. Where possible, the original pieces were digitized for viewing as well. Understandably, the majority of the content is about the development of the Asian Community Center (ACC) on Kearny Street, as it reflects our personal interests in the history project. A large portion is from Asian American Political Alliance newspaper and Wei Min Bao newspaper issues. The project also reprinted a few articles from the Japanese American movement newspapers to bring attention to the important struggles in Japantown, though these organizations were not affiliated with ACC. Other sources of reprints are from the Berkeley Barb, San Francisco Journal, Kalayaan, Red Guard Bulletin, Getting Together, New Dawn, and Rodan newspapers. We’ve included these and other unaffiliated sources in order to give the reader a sampling of the wide range of voices during the period. (Please note reprint material grammar and spelling inconsistencies are presented as is). We hope that the material will be useful for those who were touched by this era and wish to examine more in depth its significance. And we hope that new generations can find value in examining the past to serve the present.

AN ARCHIVE OF THE ASIAN AMERICAN MOVEMENT

The Asian American movement began in the late 1960s and early 1970s during one of the most tumultuous eras in post-WW2 history. In the Bay Area, the year 1968 marked a wave of Asian American activity. Three distinct Bay Area events earmarked the beginning of this local movement.

The 1968 formation of the Asian American Political Alliance in Berkeley and San Francisco.

The 1968 San Francisco State College and 1969 UC Berkeley Third World Liberation Front strikes.

The International Hotel tenants’ first eviction notice in December 1968.

The Asian American movement began amidst national and worldwide turmoil. The Vietnam War, the Civil Rights and the Black Power movements were major factors in profoundly influencing large numbers of Asian Americans to question the nature of American democracy. Revolutions throughout the underdeveloped Third World, and China’s Cultural Revolution fueled a rebellious militancy among Asian American youth. Labor struggles like the United Farm Workers Union strike drew many into support for working people’s rights. Youth worldwide were rocking to new rebel music and lifestyles which broke with convention. The Free Speech Movement which began in Berkeley in 1964 rejuvenated the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. And worldwide, women fought for equal rights.

ASIAN AMERICAN POLITICAL ALLIANCE (AAPA)

In 1968, Asian American civil rights and anti-war activists turned their attention to the specific needs of the Asian American population in the US. The Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) in Berkeley became the first organization to use Asian American, a new concept in contrast to the conventional term Oriental. Before AAPA, Asian Americans had been mostly divided into separate ethnic organizations such as Chinese American Citizens Alliance (CACA), or Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). The term Asian American became a unifying force among the different Asian ethnic groups. AAPA helped open an avenue of activism for many Asian Americans who later took part in the social transformations of the period, including the Third World Liberation Front Strikes at San Francisco State College (SFSC) and University of California Berkeley (UCB) campus. AAPA chapters quickly sprouted throughout the US as well, including in Los Angeles, New York, and Hawaii.

THIRD WORLD LIBERATION FRONT (TWLF)

The formation of the Third World Liberation Fronts (TWLF) in San Francisco and Berkeley were unprecedented coalitions of Black, Chicano, Asian, and Native American students. The TWLF demands for relevant ethnic-communities studies proposed innovative curriculum programs, minority admissions and staffing reforms. At the time only 7% of the SF State College student body was non-white. For the first time in history, racial minorities maintained their alliance for many months, enduring arrests, injuries, and tear gas until their demands were won, many which have been maintained for forty years by the Ethnic Studies departments and divisions.

INTERNATIONAL HOTEL FIGHT AGAINST EVICTION AND COMMUNITY STRUGGLES

Shortly after the period of organizing students to struggle for the establishment of various Asian American Studies programs on the college campuses, student activism extended into the surrounding communities. This took the form of establishing community centers and organizations that focused on Serve the People programs. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Asian American activists opened a number of centers. In San Francisco, this included the Asian Community Center (ACC), Asian Legal Services (ALS), Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), International Hotel Tenants Association (IHTA), Japanese Community Youth Center (JCYC), and Kearny Street Workshop (KSW).

Much different from campus life, community activism addressed the local needs and conditions of the Asian American communities. As the movement became grounded in local conditions, grassroots leadership and participation grew. A pivotal point for the Bay Area Asian American movement was the struggle against the eviction of the International Hotel tenants in San Francisco. The International Hotel began as a local fight between a financial district developer and mostly Filipino and Chinese residents living within the Manilatown area adjacent to Chinatown. But within this local background were multiple levels of power that represented globalization—in the form of Bay Area regional master plans and Pacific Rim development. These forces had already destroyed most of Manilatown and were eliminating many existing housing units in the adjoining Chinatown (mostly bachelor hotel rooms), replacing them with office high-rise buildings, hotels, and retail spaces. Similarly, redevelopment-related issues were focal points of protest in other Asian American communities. In S.F. Japantown, the Committee Against Nihonmachi Evictions (CANE), emerged to address the needs of residents and small businesses. CANE became involved in supporting low-income affordable housing issues and protests against destruction of residential and small business districts. It had a membership base of over 300 residents who were discontented over the direction of the redevelopment largely owned by Japanese multinational corporations. The activities during this time focused on grass roots community organizing. Movement organizations related their local efforts to larger events occurring on national and global arenas. On one hand, transnational capital, from sources like the Four Seas Investment Corporation, flowed from overseas to purchase the International Hotel and properties in Japantown. On the other hand, revolutionary movements in Asia and other parts of the Third World inspired and broadened the organizing efforts of Asian Americans. Asian American political views were quickly adapting to a changing international world.

TIMELINE: 1968-1977

JANUARY 1968

Tet Offensive in Vietnam, Viet Cong temporarily seized the US embassy in Saigon. This marked a turning point as the American public increasingly disapproved of the war.

MARCH 3, 1968

More than 1000 Chicano students walk out of Abraham Lincoln High School in L.A. in protest of school conditions. The student strike known as the L.A. Blowouts, would later have over 10,000 high school students walk out by the end of the week.

MARCH 16, 1968

My Lai Massacre was the mass murder of 347 to 504 unarmed citizens of Vietnam, mostly women and children, by US Army forces on March 16, 1968, in the hamlets of My Lai and My Khe during the Vietnam War. Many of the victims were raped, beaten, tortured, or mutilated. The incident prompted widespread outrage around the world and reduced US support at home for the war in Vietnam.

MARCH 1968

SF State Third World Liberation Front was formed with the Black Students Union, the Mexican American Student Confederation, the Philippine American Collegiate Endeavor (PACE), the Intercollegiate Chinese for Social Action (ICSA), the Latin American Students Organization, and the Native American Students Union. The Asian American Political Alliance joined TWLF by summertime. A member of PACE was elected as the TWLF first chair-person.

APRIL 4,1968

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. His murder was followed by urban riots nationwide in up to 76 cities.

APRIL 6, 1968

Bobby Hutton, 16 years old and the first Black Panther Party recruit, was killed in Oakland during police raid of BPP headquarters.

MAY 1968

Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) was formed in Berkeley and San Francisco.

SFSU TWLF staged a sit-in at President Summerskill’s office. Resulted in opening of 412 admission slots for TW applicants over the next two semesters, and the creation of at least 10 faculty positions for TW professors. Sit-in also involved first major act of police violence against student demonstrators with clubbings, ten injuries requiring hospitalization, and twenty-six arrests. Summerskill resigned a few months later and there was no fulfillment of earlier agreements. Student frustration lead to divergence from traditional protest channels.

JUNE 30, 1968

Berkeley mayor Wallace Johnson declared a state of emergency and a three day curfew in the city in response to violence in the wake of student demonstrations in support of the Paris, France May Uprising of students and workers the previous month.

JULY 28, 1968

First AAPA rally, UC Berkeley.

OCTOBER 28, 1968

First eviction notice was served on 196 International Hotel tenants, mostly elderly Filipino and Chinese men. The tenants were given until the first of January 1969 to leave. Milton Meyers Co. owned by Walter Shorenstein planned to demolish the building to build a parking lot.

NOVEMBER 1968

San Francisco State Strike began. It was the longest student strike in US history, lasting 167 days.

NOVEMBER 28-31, 1968

AAPA was part of a SF Bay Area delegation to the Montreal Hemispheric Conference to end the Vietnam War.

NOVEMBER 28, 1968

Free University of Chinatown Kids, Unincorporated was started by the members of SF State Intercollegiate Chinese for Social Action at their Chinatown youth center.

JANUARY 10, 1969

UCB African American Students Union (AASU) began to discuss publicly the need for action, including a possible strike. The AASU, Mexican-American Student Confederation (MASC), and the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) formed a united position and began to function as the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF).

JANUARY 11, 1969

Asian American Experience/Yellow Identity Conference held at UC Berkeley. Sponsored by Chinese Students’ Club, Nisei Students’ Club and Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) of SF, San Mateo, Los Angeles, Berkeley, San Jose, Sacramento, New York and Hawaii. Next day Statewide AAPA meeting held at UC Berkeley after the Yellow Identity Conference.

JANUARY 21, 1969

UC Berkeley Third World Strike began.

MARCH 16, 1969

Tenant and community protests forced a new International Hotel lease agreement to be signed on this day. But instead an early morning arson fire killed three tenants and destroyed a wing of the International Hotel. Landlord canceled negotiations and took steps to condemn the building.

MAY 4, 1969

May 4th Rally at Portsmouth Square. Sponsored by Red Guards and AAPA.

NOVEMBER 1969

78 Native American activists seized and occupied Alcatraz Island. The occupiers held the island for nearly eighteen months, from Nov. 20, 1969, until June 11, 1971, reclaiming it as Indian land and demanding fairness and respect for Indian peoples. Thousands of Native Americans in total participated in the occupation during those years.

JANUARY 1, 1970

Everybody’s Bookstore opened its doors in commercial space located in the International Hotel. The store became a major distribution center for Asian American books and books from the People’s Republic of China and other Asian countries.

FEBRUARY 1970

Asian Studies Field Office (UCB) established in the Victory Building, 832 Kearny Street, located next to the International Hotel. Arrangement was made with the United Filipino Association to sublet the space. By summer 1970, Asian Community Center (ACC) was founded in the same location and instituted Serve the People programs and pro-China activities. In October, a total of over 1,000 Chinatown residents attended fourteen movie showings of East Is Red, a revolutionary Peking opera. Chinatown Cooperative Garment Factory began operations, sharing space inside ACC.

APRIL 1970

ACC Food Program began to distribute US surplus foods to hundreds of low-income families in the Chinatown-Manilatown area.

NOVEMBER 15, 1970

Asian Community Center relocated to International Hotel building at 846 Kearny Street. Landlord argued that his contract was with UFA and not ACC and therefore chose to evict ACC from premises. ACC suspected that this had to do with political pressure from Chinese Six Companies.

The Chinatown press had numerous articles accusing ACC activists to be the new Red Guards.

FEBRUARY 5 & 8, 1971

Police raids on Asian Community Center, Leways & Asian Legal Services. (Press Statement February, 1971)

APRIL 9, 1971

Tiao-Yu Tai Protest Rally at Portsmouth Square. Sponsored by the Northern California Tiao-Yu Tai Islands Sovereignty Defense League.

1971

Wei Min She Organization (Organization For the People) founded in Asian Community Center.

FEBRUARY 21, 1972

President Nixon visited Peoples Republic of China and began normalizing relations between US and China.

APRIL 29, 1972

Chinese Ping Pong Delegation arrived at San Francisco International Airport, the beginning of a week of Ping Pong diplomacy events to promote friendship between the American and Chinese people.

AUGUST 1972

Kearny Street Workshop was started by local artists to offer different forms of artistic expression to the Chinatown-Manilatown community.

DECEMBER 1972

Chinese Progressive Association founded.

1973

US withdrew troops from Vietnam. By then, more than 57,000 American and 1 million Vietnamese lives were lost.

1974

Asian Community Center became the center of labor support activities for the Jung Sai garment strike and Lee Mah electronic workers strike.

1977

International Hotel tenants and thousands of supporters stood-off hundreds of police for many hours during the night of eviction.

PART I: On Strike!

Third World Liberation Front Student Strikes and the Asian American Political Alliance

CHAPTER 1. ASIAN AMERICAN POLITICAL ALLIANCE (AAPA)

Origins of the Asian American Political Alliance

By V. Wong (2008)

It was no accident that the Asian American movement began in Berkeley, California– also the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement (FSM) at the University of California at Berkeley (UCB) . Social activists worldwide were drawn to this center of the student and anti-war movement in the ‘60s. It was a couple—Yuji Ichioka, a UCB history grad student, and Emma Gee—both of whom were civil rights activists, who initiated a Peace and Freedom Party caucus by phoning every Asian-sounding name listed on Party petitions in the Berkeley/East Bay area.

In May 1968 the handful who responded met in the Berkeley’s Northside Ichioka/Gee apartment—from then on affectionately referred to as AAPA home by its members, because that is how they felt when being around others like themselves for the first time. Unanimously they agreed to form an historic independent organization — the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA). They quickly enlisted others; hammered out a program; designed a logo, button and colors; worked out alliances; and boldly introduced themselves to the public in July 1968.

AAPA was the first self-named group that called themselves Asian American, a term that Ichioka proposed. These AAPA founders, while young in age, were all political veterans from a wide range of experiences. And while most were UC Berkeley students, they never envisioned AAPA as a student organization but a much broader, all-inclusive, community grassroots alliance. Several had from their working class youths been involved with the United Farm Workers (UFW) and other labor organizing, while another was an Army veteran and Black Panther Party member, and all were involved in the ongoing civil rights/Black Power, anti-war and anti-poverty movement.

These AAPA founders also consciously and carefully chose Political and Alliance in the group’s name to distinguish itself from previous ethnic groups that had a more social and/or club-like connotation. They did this not to denigrate existing groups like the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), whom AAPA respected and worked with on progressive issues, but to forge an openly anti-imperialist political organization for all Asian nationalities, one that could stand on an equal basis with the other dominant Third World groups at the time, as part of the international Third World liberation movement for self-determination.

The term Asian American quickly became a unifying force among the different Asian ethnic groups. AAPA chapters and other similarly self-titled Asian organizations rapidly spread throughout the US. AAPA opened an avenue of activism for many Asian Americans who later played vital roles in the social transformations of the period, including the Third World Liberation Front Strikes at San Francisco State College and UC Berkeley, the International Hotel tenants struggle, and the formation of Asian Studies and Third World College curriculums nationwide. Just as their Third World brothers and sisters had done, AAPA, as the Asian American expression of Power to the People! enabled Asian Americans to rename, reclaim, redefine, and liberate themselves