The Head of a Filipino Heritage Group Balances Past and Present

The barbershop was on the bottom floor of the International Hotel, a big tenement on Kearny Street in

San Francisco. Ron Muriera went with his grandfather, a Filipino immigrant. The old man would talk with his compadres. The boy would sit beneath the clippers and listen.

The hotel was the hub of Manilatown, the heart of the city’s largest Filipino neighborhood. In the hotel’s basement sat Club Mandalay, where Nina Simone and the Smothers Brothers played.

At the peak of their presence in San Francisco, in the 1930s, nearly 40,000 Filipinos lived in the city. Most were men — railroad porters, field workers, factory hands.

“There was a sense of community,” Mr. Muriera says. “In those days, it was difficult for a lot of the immigrant communities to acculturate. The only way they could feel comfortable in the sense of developing permanent roots was to develop their own community.

“We still do that. The Koreatowns, the Little Saigons — those are opportunities for groups to feel firmly rooted in their cultures and their community and still transition into the larger society.”

By 1977, developers were eyeing Manilatown — seeking to knock down the hotel and turn the property into a parking lot.

Protesters showed up by the thousands to fight police who sought to evict the last tenants. The developers’ plans fell through. In 1996, the Manilatown Heritage Foundation was formed to help preserve the Filipino traditions that centered on the hotel. In 2005, the Archdiocese of San Francisco, which had purchased the property years earlier, and the Manilatown group opened a new International Hotel, a $30-million rent-controlled apartment complex. It includes a community center that displays the names and photos of the residents who were evicted, and the volunteers who came to their aid.

In the fall Mr. Muriera, 47, was named the charity’s executive director, overseeing a staff of four people. (Neither he nor Emil De Guzman, the group’s president, would discuss his salary in his new job.)

He brings nearly 20 years of nonprofit experience: He has led an Upward Bound program and run an education program for San Francisco’s Japanese Community Youth Council. As the Manilatown Heritage Foundation’s first full-time executive director, he inherits a budget limited by the organization’s intensely local focus, and by the high costs of opening the new hotel and community center. The group overspent its $265,000 in revenue by $63,000 in 2006, according to its informational tax filing for that year. (Neither Mr. Muriera nor Mr. De Guzman would discuss the charity’s current financial state.) Mr. Muriera acknowledges the fund-raising challenge ahead of him.

“It’s kind of hard for me right now,” he says. “I’m looking at all these great ideas, all these great things we want to be doing. But you have to start off small.”

Mr. De Guzman has traveled to the Philippines to build support for the organization, and is planning a reception with lawmakers this spring in Washington, which Mr. Muriera has helped to organize. The new leader is focusing on programming, freeing Mr. De Guzman to concentrate on pumping up fund raising. “We’re getting our bearings in terms of fund development,” Mr. De Guzman says. “The potential has always been there, but now, with Ron on board, the incentives are there to move our planning to a higher level.”

In an interview, Mr. Muriera discussed his plans for the organization.

You took part in the protest outside the International Hotel in 1977. What do you remember about that?

I was 17. I was in my first year of college, at San Francisco State University. I heard some people talking about it, and I said, “Wait a minute. I remember that place.” So I joined them.

That was my first activist demonstration. And it was a very scary experience for me. But there was energy in the group, in these people who had such strong passion and belief. It was amazing, and it felt right to me.

Had you given much thought to race and policy before that?

I had thought about it. I was a theater-arts major in college, and I had a professor who would not allow me in his class. He said it right to my face: “Ron, you’re not white.”

Most of the students of color were in technical fields. They did scenery or costumes. I wanted something else, so I dropped out.

How do you pay tribute to the story of the International Hotel, an event that is now 30 years old, and still move the organization forward?

The foundation was created to honor the struggle — to document, preserve, and share the history of the International Hotel. But when you look back at it, the larger issue is the fight for affordable housing. And that is the task now: to get the word out, and to help with the application process.

There are 104 units in the new International Hotel, and there’s a waiting list. So we’ve made some progress.

Our mission also is to promote and document the historic contributions of Filipino Americans, because the International Hotel was a symbol for that community. What we are doing at the cultural center is creating a space for the community to gather. We’ve had art shows. We’ve had authors launch books here.

How difficult is Manilatown’s fund-raising situation?

I don’t see it as a bad spot. What you saw in 2006 was a transitioning of the organization. A lot of effort before then went into ensuring that everything went well with the construction of the new hotel. That took a lot of resources. We have been able to develop some very strong support from the Filipino community. But I believe we can do a better job.

Some groups with a minority focus struggled after September 11. Are you still feeling any of that?

Post-9/11, the work we do in the nonprofit sector is a lot more difficult, especially when you represent a minority group. You have to be careful, when there’s a watch list and you want to get on a plane. But it hasn’t stopped us. If anything, it has created more collaboration, more cooperation.

Whether it’s the immigration issue, or the Patriot Act, or aligning with a specific religious organization, we are having discussions about how we can work together and educate, beginning within our own community.

Some organizations went beyond “Let’s sit down and see what we can do about this.” They developed formal partnerships. They determined what their rights are as citizens, and what the response should be if they are profiled.

Are there growing pains ahead?

I’ve been in the nonprofit sector for close to 20 years, so I kind of know how it works. Manilatown is just now making its transition into adolescence. We’ve learned to walk on our own. But our pants are getting tighter.

We need to buy some new pants. The question is, how are you going to find the money?