A Century of Resistance: The Gran Oriente
The Gran Oriente Filipino Hotel, first established as a fraternal lodge allowing early Filipino immigrants in the 1920s to exercise their agency, is now a permanent affordable housing site in San Francisco. Mission Housing, a non-profit dedicated to creating and preserving high-quality affordable housing for low- and moderate-income families, has recently acquired this historic South Park property. Funds for the $4.5 million acquisition and subsequent rehabilitation is being provided by the the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, and its South of Market Community Stabilization Fund.
During meetings between the Filipino Community Development Corporation, the Filipino-American Development Foundation, SOMA Pilipinas, the SOMA Stabilization Fund Community Advisory Community, and Mission Housing, advocates exchanged ideas on how to best honor its legacy and ensure its continuation as a Filipino-American institution. Sam Moss, Executive Director of Mission Housing, stated, “We will be working with the community to provide tenant education, organizing, and programming of the Gran Oriente as a historic and cultural asset.”
The formation of the Gran Oriente Filipino Hotel was a smart real estate move started by a group of Filipino seamen and merchant marines who pooled their resources to purchase the building. In 1921, the fraternity purchased the three-story victorian for $6,000. They named it Gran Oriente in honor of their fraternity in the Philippines. Filipino women were scarce in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. And until its repeal in 1948, anti-miscegenation laws in the U.S. prevented marriage between people of different “races”. The 24-room hotel served as a meeting place and boarding house for its bachelor members who worked in San Francisco and for farmworker members in the Central Valley who visited on the weekends. It 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 boasted 700 members, with each paying an annual membership of $9 sent back to the Philippines and another $25 annually in local dues. Barred from purchasing property by the California Alien Land Law of 1913 prior to World War II, it was only after that the fraternity began acquiring residential buildings along South Park Street; they bought two buildings across from the hotel and a 15-acre property in Morgan Hill. Simultaneously, more lodges of affiliated Filipino masonries were set up in California (Salinas, Stockton, Sacramento), Hawaii, Seattle, Phoenix, New York City, Brooklyn, Newark, and New Jersey. At the time, the Gran Oriente proved a concrete and viable strategy in sustaining Filipino-American community, well-being, and survival.
After the war, the declining numbers and increasingly old age of members led to more turbulent times, until the community came together to figure out how to sustain this cultural legacy.
Although most of the properties are now gone, the building at South Park still retains its integrity, spanning almost a century of Filipino-American contributions to the South of Market. The Gran Oriente Filipino Hotel stands as a testament to the struggles and victories of Filipino-Americans facing racism and discrimination. It provided refuge during a time when Filipinos were excluded from White organizations and neighborhoods in San Francisco. It was– and continues to be– a source of brotherhood, community, and affordable housing, through the pioneering example of early Filipino immigrants.