England Hidalgo, Gran Oriente Filipino, 2020
San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts opens “Makibaka: A Living Legacy,” an exhibit honoring Manilatown and the International Hotel struggle, connecting Filipino American history with today’s fight against displacement.
SAN FRANCISCO — The story of Manilatown and the historic fight to save the International Hotel is once again in the spotlight through a major new art exhibit at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA).
Titled “Makibaka: A Living Legacy,” the exhibition opened on August 1 and runs through January 4, 2026. Organized in collaboration with the cultural district SOMA Pilipinas, the show brings together more than 20 Filipino American artists to honor the legacy of activism, displacement, and community resilience tied to San Francisco’s lost Filipino enclave.
Remembering a community erased
For decades, Manilatown thrived along Kearny and Jackson Streets, home to thousands of Filipino immigrants, workers, and families. By the 1960s, however, urban renewal and financial district expansion began eroding the neighborhood. The nine-year struggle to defend the International Hotel (I-Hotel), where many elderly Filipino tenants lived, became a flashpoint. The residents’ eventual eviction in 1977 and the building’s demolition in 1979 symbolized not only the physical loss of a community but also the erasure of immigrant history from the city’s landscape.
A living archive of art and memory
The YBCA exhibit does not just memorialize the past — it animates it. Works range from large-scale installations and archival photographs to fabric art, sculpture, and protest posters. Coverage of the show notes objects such as a brick from the original International Hotel, alongside immersive pieces like a steel-colored checkerboard floor and an orange-and-cyan staircase referencing the Filipino Education Center.
Artists like Kimberly Acebo Arteche highlight the often overlooked roles of Filipina activists in the I-Hotel movement, while others use color, texture, and sound to recreate the urgency of collective struggle. KQED wrote that walking through the show “feels like flipping a breathing scrapbook” — a reminder that these histories are lived, not frozen.
Makibaka: fight and continuity
Makibaka means “to fight” in Tagalog, and the exhibit’s title underlines the ongoing nature of the struggle. Beyond revisiting a painful chapter in San Francisco history, the show connects those events to present-day issues of housing rights, gentrification, immigrant labor, and elder care.
For YBCA and SOMA Pilipinas, the goal is not only to preserve memory but also to center community voices in shaping the city’s cultural future. By foregrounding resilience and solidarity, the exhibition calls on visitors to see Manilatown’s legacy as a living force rather than a closed book.
A legacy that endures
The I-Hotel may be gone, but the spirit of the Manongs, their allies, and the generations that followed continues to resonate. “Makibaka: A Living Legacy” offers a platform for remembrance and renewal, affirming that Filipino Americans remain integral to San Francisco’s cultural identity.
The exhibit is open to the public at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street, through January 4, 2026.
