Filipino men sit at outdoor stone tables and play chess. Colorful murals of carabaos and jeepneys decorate street corners. And Filipino words adorn the signs in front of common areas.
This may sound like a street scene from the Philippines, however it's right here, within the SOMA Pilipinas Filipino Cultural Heritage District in San Francisco.
Raquel Redondiez, director of SOMA Pilipinas, describes the district as a mirrored image of the Filipino spirit. The word means “community spirit” and is usually illustrated by the image of townspeople coming together to lift and transport a (nipa hut) from one place to a different.
“(This) is a place where immigrants and their families put down roots in the United States,” Redondiez said. “And it’s also a place where people come together to support each other.”
Established in 2016, the heritage district extends south of Market Street to Brannan Street and between Eleventh Street and Second Street. It's home to several essential historical landmarks – and the infamous I-Hotel is nearby. The former International Hotel once housed 104 low-income housing units and was the location of major protests and mass expulsions of Filipino and Chinese immigrants in 1977, including many seniors.
According to the town ordinance, it’s an area that’s “home to Filipinos who have been an integral part of the city’s cultural wealth, economic prosperity and historical significance.” But it's not the just one.
According to the 2017 American Community Survey, roughly 500,000 Filipinos live within the Bay Area – 12% of the 4 million Filipinos within the United States. They live in cities and towns throughout the region, with vibrant Filipino-American communities in cities like Daly City, South San Francisco, Union City, Milpitas and beyond, each bringing wealthy traditions and cultures to the region.
The organization SOMA Pilipinas, which oversees the county's cultural and special events, works to preserve the history of Filipino heritage in Northern California by commissioning several vibrant public murals. You can tour the district by jeepney – a preferred public utility vehicle within the Philippines made up of World War II-era Willy Jeeps left behind by the US military. Here, the winning vehicle takes riders on a tour of the district's 20 pieces of public art, including the murals.
The latter includes the newly renovated and elaborately designed mural Ang Lipi ni Lapu Lapu. Originally painted in 1984 by Johanna Poethig, Vicente Clement and Presco Tabios, it was recently restored by Poethig, Dev Heyrana, Mariel Paat and Pablo Ruiz Arroyo. Located on the corner of Bonifacio and Lapu Lapu Streets, this 90-by-25-foot mural depicts centuries of Philippine history. You'll see images of the 300-year-old Spanish galleon trade with two-time Olympic gold medalist Victoria Manalo Draves. The boxer Pancho Villa is represented, as is the Cebuano chief Lapulapu, famous for the murder of the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. There are Filipino farm employees, nurses and more.
Other essential murals within the district include the Carabao by Franceska Gámez and Cece Carpio at 1052 Folsom St.; the Jeepney mural, also by Carpio, at 975 Bryant St.; and the mural “Ani – Harvested Hopes” by Venazir Martinez at 275 Fifth St.
Although lots of the organization's events are celebratory and welcoming, they arise from one other spirit of SOMA Pilipinas that Redondiez speaks about: the struggle – for land, for jobs, for housing and for survival.
“I think there is an inherent fighting spirit within the community to really assert our place and our right to have a home in the city,” Redondiez says. “And having (a) neighborhood that has the same neighborhood amenities as other parts of the city, like parks and security.”
SOMA Pilpinas local historian MC Canlas noted that xenophobic sentiments emerged during Donald Trump's first presidential run in 2016. San Francisco's recognition of the district was a response to the racism that characterised Trump's campaign, he says. Designating the realm as a cultural district also meant that the town government had to acquire approval from SOMA residents before constructing anything in the realm.
“You can’t just push people away, that’s the legacy of the I-Hotel,” says Canlas.
For a long time – long before the official decree – the mixed-use district served as a square, says Canlas. In the Philippines, the square was the middle of Filipino culture with schools, churches and money transfer services.
San Francisco writer Oscar Peñaranda says the square reflects the Filipino mindset: the necessity for community, well-known in Filipino psychology, and the necessity for a physical center where every little thing you wish is nearby .
The city with the biggest Filipino-American population within the country is just not San Francisco in any respect, but Daly City. According to the 2020 census, a 3rd of this city's residents trace their ancestry to this island nation.
But the creation of SOMA Pilipinas makes a notable statement on this community, home to the Bessie Carmichael School, which offers a bilingual Filipino and English program, senior services and housing for working-class Filipinos.
Although the town has sanctioned a Filipino district, Redondiez said it still doesn't offset the impact of a burgeoning tech sector that has driven up prices and compelled the displacement of 1000’s of Filipinos in SoMa. Redondiez remembers the technology boom within the early 2000s that left many Filipino renters and their families paying dearly. They were forced to maneuver to other, smaller homes, comparable to those within the Tenderloin and out of doors of San Francisco.
SOMA Pilipinas has fought to revive the Filipino presence within the region. For example, the organization purchased a constructing whose former tenants a long time ago actively discriminated against Filipinos by denying them entry. Redondiez grins on the irony of a Filipino constructing where the identical people once lived apart.
The group's Asian American Pacific Islander fund, price about $30 million at its peak, has helped corporations owned and operated by Filipinos and other Asian and Pacific Islander communities purchase their very own buildings. And other Filipino corporations are beginning to buy buildings, she says, including Kulintang Arts, an arts group whose performance pieces preserve the Philippines' ancestral and tribal arts, and the nonprofit Bayanihan Equity Center, which serves seniors and adults with disabilities.
It is the very definition of the Bayanihan spirit.
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