Meeting Place: 12 noon at point A: MLK Waterfall, ground level, Yerba Buena Gardens

Itinerary:

12:00 pm MLK Waterfall ground level, YBG

12:50-1:15 pm SFMOMA, 151 3rd

1:20-1:30 pm Palace Hotel, 2 New Montgomery

1:35-1:40 pm Filipino Social Club, 328 Minna st

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yTLzg-LFFG0yEokowcmc7fv56vJDxKJw&usp=sharing

On July 4, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt declared in Proclamation 483 that the Philippine  “Insurrection” had come to an end and granted pardon and amnesty to those participants in the “insurrection.” A little over a year later on July 19, 1903, The San Francisco Chronicle published an article, “San Francisco Has a Flourishing Filipino Colony.” The article identifies one of the earliest Filipino-run clubs in San Francisco. The name for the organization is the Filipino Social Club. The headquarters is described as a “two story and basement house on Minna Street…(t)he lower portion is occupied by a barber shop and billiard parlors, and the up-stairs rooms serve as homes for the members.” The officers in the club were M.D. Alba, president; G. Estrellas, vice-president; C. Jordan, treasurer; A. Guerrero, recording secretary; A. Rodriguez, corresponding secretary. Another component of the group was a “Mutual Benevolent Society” to provide for sick and needy members. The article goes on to say that some 200 Filipinos had come to San Francisco since the end of the Philippine American War.

Where was this Filipino Social Club on Minna Street? A search of the 1903 San Francisco City Directory probably provides the location. There is a listing on page 173 of the directory for a Malissius D. Alba, whose occupation is listed as a porter and living on 328 Minna Street.

http://filipinoamericancenter.blogspot.com/2014/03/article-from-san-francisco-chronicle.html

José Rizal’s Quarantine and the Nightmare of Imperialism

 The great nationalist hero of the Philippines, Dr. José Rizal, came to the Bay Area on April 28, 1888. Rizal was the leader of the nascent nationalist movement against Spanish colonialism in the Philippines. Unfortunately for Rizal, he arrived during one of the most anti-Asian periods in American history. Only six years earlier, Californians successfully convinced the U.S. Congress to pass the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, an immigration law which excluded Chinese labor from entering the United States. Upon sailing through the Golden Gate, Rizal discovered that he was not allowed to set foot in San Francisco. Instead, he found himself quarantined at Angel Island. The following day he wrote a letter to his parents in the Philippines:

 “Here [in San Francisco] we are in sight of America since yesterday without being able to disembark, placed in quarantine on account of the 642 Chinese that we have on board coming from Hong Kong where they say smallpox prevails. But the true reason is that, as America is against Chinese immigration, and now they are campaigning for the elections, the government, in order to get the vote of the people, must appear to be strict with the Chinese, and we suffer. On board there is not one sick person.” (Jaime Veneracin, “Rizal in San Francisco,” Manila Mail, October 30-November 5, 1996)

 After this experience, Rizal warned that America was not hospitable to Filipinos: “I’ll not advise anyone to make this trip to America, for here they are crazy about quarantine, they have severe customs inspection, imposing [duties] on anything.”

After seven days in quarantine, Rizal was finally allowed to set foot in San Francisco, where he made a point of taking a room at the very prestigious and expensive Palace Hotel. A few days later, Rizal went by ferry to the inland Port of Stockton where he would board a train for Sacramento, and then went on to Reno, Salt Lake City, Chicago, and New York City. On his train ride across America, Rizal realized the enormous wealth, power and imperialistic ambitions of America. In his essay “The Philippine Century,” he predicted that American expansionism would extend across the Pacific to as far away as the Philippines.

Ten years later, on May 1, 1898, Rizal’s nightmare became a reality when Commodore George Dewey and the U.S. Navy’s Third Asiatic Squadron steamed into Manila Bay and obliterated an antiquated Spanish naval fleet.

James Sobredo,excerpted from “From Manila Bay to Daly City: Filipinos in San Francisco” in Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics and Culture, A City Lights Anthology 

Artist Statement 

“Amidst the surrounding cityscape, and as a natural counterpoint and complement to the stimulating experience of the art-filled museum, the SFMOMA Living Wall is an inviting and recharging feature. In conceiving the wall, it was important for it to be perceived as an extension of the natural world, to not be overly designed. The wall needed to be rooted somehow in the California landscape, its wider home. Drawing practical inspiration from the fairly shaded exposure of the site, I worked to capture the essence of an understory plant community in a California woodland, so amorphous planting swathes reflect the composition of a regional forest floor. Filled with many different textures, it is lush, diverse and monochromatic.

The Living Wall at SFMOMA is a multi-sensory experience that envelopes the viewer. The wall is vast, unable to be seen in its entirety from any single vantage point. An evolving ecosystem, birds, bees, butterflies and other insects are drawn to inhabit and pollinate the wall.  As the wind passes through the leaves of multiple fern varieties, there is a perception of movement and softness. The seasons are reflected in the wall with an ever-changing play of textures and shades of green and other hues. It’s exciting to witness the wall’s dynamic light-dark interplay change over time — for example, when the orange-tinged tips of the huckleberry emerge and take their glowing turn in the spotlight, or when the Pink Flowering Currant and the Campanula deliver their seasonal surprises of flower color. This dynamism is a feature of the site’s biophilic design, aimed at awakening and reinforcing the human urge to reconnect with nature, creating an experiential bond between the viewer and the living wall.

To fully experience the wall, walk the length of the terrace as if it were a trail within a forest. The path offers the viewer a multitude of intimate discoveries of fragrance, color, and texture in the foliage. Next, view the wall in profile, where the various dimensions of plant forms are showcased and where the undulating white facade of the building is embraced by the soft textures and lushness of the plants. It is where nature and architecture meet and become one.”

-David Brenner

Irrigation System:  

• Engineered by Hyphae Design Lab, the wall is irrigated mostly by stormwater and condensate water (excess water from the building’s HVAC system)

• Runoff water is captured and recirculated back into the system

http://www.habitathorticulture.com/projects/sfmoma

Text by Leo Valledor’s Son, Rio Valledor-

My dad was raised in The ‘Mo of the ‘Sco aka the Fillmore district of Sucker Free aka San Francisco. Leo Corpus Valledor was born January 18,1936. He told me his mother, Geronima, died, while embracing him. He told me his father, Abdon, abandoned him soon after. Leo was left with a house full of bachelor ‘uncles’ the recently immigrated men looking for work who continued Geronima’s card games and often forgot to pay rent to the new, young ‘landlord’ Leo. 

He negotiated the Fillmore ghetto as a minority in another minority’s community. Leo strode the strut and rapped the slang in order to communicate with, navigate through and yes, imitate fully, the hustlers/players/cornermen of that era’s hood. He was a teenager during the Birth of Cool and so that became HIS music but he shared it with the Beats over in North Beach. 

Although he was naturally skilled at drawing, it seems that the music allowed him to make a leap from designing the Galileo Yearbook cover to receiving a scholarship to California School of Fine Arts from 1953-1955 (now the SF Art Institute) and under the mentorship of Wally Hedrick he was soon having solo shows of his paintings at The 6 Gallery, the Spatsa Gallery and the Dilexi in the late Fifties. The title of a piece he made in 1956 simultaneously summed up the against-all-odds ambitions and his street swagger: “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Cat” 

His first large paintings were in the ‘abstract expressionist’ style of the time but his interest in ‘Eastern’ philosophy brought him to a series of “monotone” meditative works with titles like “Becoming” and “Presence.” He soon developed a new ‘Eastern’ philosophy when he moved to New York in 1962 and, along with the Park Place Group (the ‘first’ ‘downtown gallery’ included Mark di Suvero, Peter Forakis, Forrest Myers, Dean Fleming, Robert Grosvenort, Anthony Magar, Tamara Melcher, Ed Ruda), explored Einstein’s theories through various artistic media with Bucky Fuller’s geometry, Buck Rogers energy and mind-altering substances. Oh, did I mention this was the early Sixties? 

Mutual admiration amongst Leo, Donald Judd and Sol Lewitt surfaced at the Kaymer Gallery and bold shows at the Paula Cooper and Graham galleries upped his profile. Paintings as currency led to a tab at hip-mecca Max’s Kansas City which allowed for free lobster dinners but he struggled to make less- than-$30-rents for illegal lofts on Park Place and then Walker. He was part of the group that INVENTED ‘loft living’ and ‘downtown.’ 

And he and my mom left it all in 1968 to return to SF. I was born a year later. ‘Summer of Love’ indeed.
He tried teaching at the Art Institute but didn’t understand why the kids didn’t just ‘paint what they wanted.’ When I was a kid I knew he was a Painter but didn’t realize what being an Artist was. I knew he showed at ‘The Museum’ but I didn’t realize there were other museums besides the SF Museum of Modern Art. And I thought everyone had parties for their ‘openings’ and worked at their ‘studio’. He used to use masking tape to clearly delineate what parts of the studio a kid could play in. He would play Pharoah Saunders as my lullaby and Nina Simone as Sunday gospel. He played the sax ‘freely’ but couldn’t read music… so he invented his own notation. His painting ‘God Bless The Grass’ alluded to other distractions. He couldn’t hold his liquor and danced like fellow jazz-head, Bill Cosby. He showed HUGE paintings at the Oakland Museum but when times got lean he learned to paint small, jewel-like pieces on discarded door-skins he would find in the Mission District. His titles were an artform of their own alluding to culture… 

The Flip Side, Disoriented Oriental, Okasian, Culi, We Shall Overcome 

Inspiration… 

Rothkokoro, Quintessence (for Edward Varese), My Ship (To R. Buckminster Fuller), In the Balance (To Mark) 

Music… 

Duop, Milespace, The Bridge (to Sonny Rollins), Zoot Sutra (song for my father), Work of Art (to the Jazz Messengers), Bluzing 

Or just wordplay… 

Ultimojo, Solidude, Mama Sutra 

He took me to James Bond flicks and “A Clockwork Orange” when I was too young to get it. He listened along to my favorite mix-shows on KPOO and KSOL when he was too old to get it. He used to bring me to the Marina to listen to the big Latin and Samoan dudes play the drums and he took me to the early show of an Art Blakey/Jazz Messengers gig featuring an up-and-comer named Wynton Marsalis. 

And he was always painting. He showed at the Modernism 

and at Daniel Weinberg.

He was excited that I was moving to New York but had never been to Brooklyn when he lived there. He was in good spirits but bad health after he had a tumor removed from his brain and he died quite suddenly at the age of 53, apparently from a related growth. He died when I was visiting SF and when I was finally feeling like I could have a serious conversation about art and music and things like that.
Obviously there is a lifetime of details and stories that are between these lines and one day I’ll put them together but today, on my fathers birthday, I just had to remember a FEW things…
Leo Valledor 1936-1989 

Excerpted from Rio Valledor’s blog: http://riogood.blogspot.com

There were three Filipino barbershops on Kearny Street.  One next door to the International Hotel.  This was Tino’s Shop.  And next door to that was the Bataan Drug Store, the Bataan Pool Hall, the Bataan Restaurant.  

And across the street where Mike’s Pool Hall is now, I mean Lucky-M that used to be a clothing store in 1930 or 1928 or 1929, he sold this building to a Filipino old timer, then they made this into a pool hall.  The first owner’s name was Julian, and the second, a Filipino boxer name Tino.  He owned it for a long time. 

Another Filipino name Samposa, from Mindanao, wants to buy it for $3,500 but was turned down. And Muyco and his wife took it over.  They still manage the pool hall.  The pool hall has a history all he way up to now.  The Filipino boys all know each other.  We are drawn together.  We all come from the same place.  We feel at home here.”

https://manilatown.org/about-us/history/

From 1920-35 there was a Filipino male population of 39,328.  Legislation forbid Filipinos from owning land or setting up businesses.  They were to be kept moving, remain transient.  They stayed in labor camps, rooming houses and hotels.The International Hotel was one of these.  “Manilatown,” the Kearny/Jackson Street area of San Francisco, became a permanent settlement, a convenient culture contact.  It was the home field-workers returned to, where merchant marines lived while in port, where distant relatives and friends could be contacted, where they could enjoy the security of a common culture. immigration laws re-enforced the role the International Hotel played as a family with the social protection it provided.  The Filipino community in San Francisco existed in groups dictated by economic necessity and blood brotherhood.  The International Hotel became a symbol for an entire minority community.

https://manilatown.org/about-us/history/

6/21 W1D2: Historical Roots of Land Ownership: Exclusion Acts, Filipino Histories in the SOMA, Urban Redevelopment

• 12:00PM Welcome (5 min) – Meet at the MLK Waterfall at the Yerba Buena Gardens
• 12:05 Icebreaker
• 12:25PM Educational: Discussion and Walking Tour (80 min)
  • Discussion (20 min):
    • Why do you think we are meeting at Yerba Buena Gardens? (5 min)
    • Brief history of redevelopment in context of land tied to capitalism (15 min)
  • Walking Tour (60 min): 2.5 minutes of talking per site
    • SFMOMA / Leo Valledor (YBG) – Filipino History
    • Palace Hotel (Market and New Montgomery)  – Exclusion Acts
    • Filipino Social Club, circa 1904 (328 Minna) – Filipino History
    • Picnic at YBG Park
• 1:45PM Lunch (30 min)
• 2:15PM Energizer (5 min)
• 2:20PM Brief reflection (10 min)
• 2:30PM Roleplay Activity (10 min) – Break into pairs of two. Reimagine situation presented below. Defend position of character you are playing.
  • Scenario: Jose Rizal quarantined in Angel Island (give context to tour)
    • Roles:
      • Jose Rizal
    • It’s 1888, You are Dr. José Rizal,  who just came to the Bay Area on April 28, 1888. You are an intellectual, a doctor and revolutionary leader of the nationalist movement against Spanish colonialism in the Philippines. Upon sailing through the Golden Gate through a boat from Hong Kong, you discover in the border patrol at Angel Island that you are not allowed to set foot in San Francisco. You find yourself quarantined at Angel Island because of the Chinese Exclusion Act which wrongfully accuses your boat to have small pox because it came from Hong Kong even if there is no single person sick in your boat. You find out that America is against Chinese immigration and you defend your position.
      • Immigration Official
    • Its 1888, You are an immigration officer at the port in Angel Island implementing the Chinese exclusion act and your job is to allow entry of immigrants to the U.S. except if they are of the Chinese race.  All boats coming from China are quarantined. Under the supreme court you can refuse entry at the port based on their race without due process. You are told that boats coming from China are deceased with small pox. You are also told that the addition of Chinese foreigners adds to the competition of jobs in the city. Racism toward Chinese immigrants was socially accepted and social rights were oftentimes denied to this community. You can exercise what is socially acceptable to defend your position.

• 2:40PM Reflection on Roleplay (10 min)
  • Idea: get notebooks for youth to have to continue to write down reflections for the program/take notes
• 2:50PM Closing (10 min)