Activist and scholar, Dr. Estella Habal, Professor Emerita, at San Jose State University, taught courses in Asian American history and Women Studies from 1999-2014. She was a member of the KDP (Katiupunan ng mga Demokratikong Pilipino), a Filipino revolutionary organization which fought against the Philippine President Marcos dictatorship and for democratic rights in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s.
She also fought to stop the eviction of its tenants, and told the story in a book, San Francisco’s International Hotel: Mobilizing the Filipino American Community in the Anti-Eviction Movement (Temple 2007). In the 1990s, she helped to resurrect low income housing at the new International Hotel and open up the International Hotel Manilatown Center in 2005. She has four children and nine grandchildren.
manilatown.org 