SAN FRANCISCO – One of San Francisco’s most beloved community leaders Bill Sorro passed away on August 27th. Bill was a fierce activist in many labor, social justice, housing rights, and neighborhood struggles for many decades but is best known as a leader in the struggle to save and rebuild SF’s International Hotel (?I-Hotel.’) He was one of the warmest and most positive people I have ever met, who worked tirelessly nurturing younger activists like me and generations of others in our movements.

Over 35 years ago, Bill helped establish the I-Hotel Tenants Association which fought for years against the evictions of the mostly senior Filipino and Chinese tenants who were forcibly evicted from their homes on the night of August 4th 1977. Afterwards Bill worked with Emil De Guzman, Al Robles and others to establish the Manilatown Heritage Foundation which successfully secured the former I-Hotel site for low-income housing and the new Manilatown Center which opened in 2005.

On August 4th, hundreds of Filipino, Asian American, tenant, labor and social justice movement activists gathered at the Manilatown Center to commemorate the I-Hotel struggle and to honor Bill (who was too sick to attend) and his family