I remember going to the I Hotel as a boy in the 1970’s to visit my Uncle Bill (Bill Sorro) who lived there at the time. He and Giuliana got married there.
As a kid , I saw how much he truly loved the I Hotel. He had an unwavering passion to fight the evictions, especially for the elderly tenants that lived there, I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that our family had so much history there and it was a connection to our Filipino heritage.
My Grandmother, (Bill’s Mom) lived at our house when I was growing up and sometimes she would even call me Bill!
I remember the story’s she would tell about my Grandfather , Salvador Sorro,how he and some other Manongs worked in the sugar cane fields in Hawaii and moonlighted playing in a band at at night to make enough money for them to come to San Francisco . The I Hotel was the first place they stayed when they got here.
manilatown.org 