The I-Hotel was more than a hotel; for the transient Filipino workers it was a cultural center, clearinghouse, and a place to call home. This sense of belonging was passed on to those who came to the Hotel to help the tenants, but also to find meaning in their lives.

The elderly tenants welcomed us like family, taught values that stay with us to this day – humility, family, honoring our ancestors, fighting for what we believe in, staying true to our sense of justice. For artists and other seekers, the Hotel became a call for our yearning to find a sense of purpose, a source for creative expression.

Many different community groups rallied together to support the I-Hotel – students, activists, artists, labor unions, church groups, etc. It was an intergenerational and multi-cultural effort. I want you to experience the I-Hotel phenomena by engaging you with art, poetry and stories. Al, the Filipino poet laureate and historian, wrote a lot about Ifugao Mountain and a character named Tagatac. He had never been to the Philippines, but he was in touch with the soul of the Filipino, having made it his life work to record and honor these first wave immigrants who lived out their lives in single occupancy hotels.

At Al Robles’ poetry & song event Al had coaxed 8 or 9 seniors to perform with him, by promising to cook them fish head soup. The catch was that they had to sit at tables on stage and eat the fish heads in front of the audience and sing a few songs. Well, these manongs, some 70 years old, some in their 80s and 90s– they loved fish head soup and couldn’t resist the offer.

So Al cooked up a big batch of fish head soup, and the manongs sat at the tables, which were decorated with palm leaves and pineapples. The wonderful aroma of the soup filled the air. The manongs waited eagerly. Then it was ready, brought out by women in long flowing shawls– one fish head per bowl, with a heap of rice, each placed before the manongs.  They ate with much relish as Al read poetry about finding Ifugao Mountain right here on Kearny Street. Just listen, he said, to the songs and smell the fish head soup. Ifugao Mountain is here in the hearts of the manongs. So they ate and Al read and Joe played the guitar; his old fingers flying nimbly across the strings.

After the manongs were finished with their meal, they gathered around the mike in a circle and Al started to talk story. “Remember, Freddie, that song you used to sing that made the women cry...how did it go?” And Al would sing a few notes and Freddie, 92 year old Freddie who used to sing and dance and play the banjo for us on Kearny Street– Freddie would start to remember and sing in as beautiful a voice as ever.

Come to me my melancholy baby....

We sighed with memory. A woman got up and swayed to the music; someone played the harmonica and others joined in, urged on by Al’s loving touch and Freddie’s deep voice.

Come to me and don’t be blue....

Towards the end of the evening they wouldn’t stop singing, as the memory of all those songs and all the past came flooding in. Women sang and danced; men crooned, stomped their feet. We closed the place late, with the manongs begging for one more goodbye song, their bellies full of fish head soup, our hearts nourished and fed as well.