Curtis Choy

Anti-eviction protest of the I-Hotel, San Francisco, courtesy of Asianamericansinmedia's blog

The other day I watched The Fall of I-Hotel (Curtis Choy, 1983), a documentary on the poor immigrant oldtimers of Manila Town in San Francisco who fought to keep International Hotel (a.k.a. I-Hotel) alive, their home of decades. I learned about it from a book I recently bought: Ghostlife of Third Cinema by Glen M. Mimura (2009). Third Cinema is a term coined to describe the revolutionary cinema of Latin America in the 60-70s (as opposed to First Cinema = Hollywood, and Second Cinema=European Art Cinema) but have been expanded to describe cinema of resistance by the filmmakers of color and other marginalized identities. I’ve been teaching Third Cinema at Hunter College since 2016 and the cover picture of the book is a still from History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige (1991) by my mentor and good friend Rea Tajiri -what a perfect combination! The Fall of I-Hotel was described in the book as “the most fully realized (or strict) Asian American example of Third Cinema.”

It truly was a powerful piece. Max, my partner in filmmaking and film festival making and life, who are often turned off by “school” films I watch, enjoyed it very much too. Those Filipino uncles who appear in the film had lived there for 15-40 years in the 70s, which means some had come in the 30s. They were farmers and laborers, sending money back home, now too old to work. I-Hotel contained many Filipino and Chinese immigrants, mostly men, and each decorated and organized their respective rooms in their own styles. One guy’s room was sooo neat using the tiny space efficiently that Marie Kondo would approve. Hitohata: Raise the Banner, the first Asian American feature-length drama by Duane Kubo and Robert Nakamura, (both had studied in the legendary UCLA film program that also produced LA Rebellion black filmmakers) was also about Issei Japanese immigrants who came before WWII, sent to the interment camps, then lived in one of those hotels. In both films, the hotel they live in was threatened as the town got gentrified. Those cheap family-run hotels must have been everywhere back then, creating a community of working-class immigrants. What’s remarkable about The Fall of I-Hotel is that the residents’ fight against the developer and the city evolves into a mass demonstration of activists who came to support those Filipino and Chinese immigrants from around the country. I won’t tell you what happens so that you can rent and watch it on your own and support independent documentary cinema. But I will tell you -that there is a 8min sequel made by Curtis Choy himself (it was in the special feature on DVD) as well as another 42min doc called The Rise of the I-Hotel (It may have been created by Curtis Choy and the 8min version may have been an excerpt, I am not sure).

Besides the special 8min feature of The Rise of I-Hotel, the DVD had a few trailers of films by Curtis Choy. One was Wendy… Uh… What’s Her Name (2006), a doc on Wendy Yoshimura, a Nisei Japanese artist born in Manzanar Internment Camp, who is known for her involvement in the Symbionese Liberation Army and kidnapping of Patty Hearst (a granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, an American publishing magnate), and the other was What’s Wrong With Frank Chin (2005), a doc on an author, playwright, and one of the pioneers if Asian American theatre and literature.  While watching the trailers for those films, I had a vague feeling that Curtis Choy is searching for Asian American political leader, like Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Black Panther, or perhaps James Baldwin. It made me curious if he found one.

Filmmaker Curtis Choy with the 16mm Éclair NPR filming "Wendy..uh, what's her name?" *a documentary about Wendy Yoshimura) in Fresno, California 1976. Photo by Nancy Wong

I couldn’t find Wendy… Uh… What’s Her Name, but got a hold of What’s Wrong With Frank Chin. This one, Max slept through it. It was hard to watch because of the style (kinda boring, lots of talking heads) and it was all about literature and theatre especially in the beginning (Max hates library). But from the middle, I got so into it and enjoyed and appreciated the content very much. Frank Chin and 2 other hippie Chinese American writers wanted to find the roots of Asian American literature and found several of Asian Americans writers (Many Japanese Americans) who were writing and some publishing even in the 1930s. Most of them had just passed away, but one was alive – Toshio Mori, and they go interview him. Mori’s book Yokohama, California (1949) was the first Asian American novel book published in the US. It was supposed to be published in 1942, but due to WWII and his incarceration in an internment camp, it was delayed. His short stories depict Japanese American community before and after WWII in California. Chin and others in the 1970s publish the first Asian American literature anthology called Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers in 1974 and include the rediscovered works by Toshio Mori and a few other earlier Japanese American writers. I got so interested in those early Asian American literature. Aiiieeeee! has been studied in Asian American studies and its 3^rd edition is sold at Amazon. I bought a copy and read Mori’s short novel “The Woman Who Make Swell Donuts” -it was surprisingly short, only a few pages, but was sooo good! It feels privileged to get to peek into the lives of early Japanese immigrants’ lives and feelings. We can do so thanks to those pioneers like Frank Chin (and Curtis Choy) who searched and found them and keep their names alive. And it is nice to see Japanese Americans and Chinese Americans work together for a common goal to make us visible, while Japanese and Chinese in Asia remain separated and often times look down on each other. I will read the rest of the anthology and will also read Yokohama, California, which is available digitally at libraries. Maybe Aiiieeeee! too.

1974 book cover for "AIIIEEEEE!" Graphic design by Bob Onodera

Writer Frank Chin in his San Francisco, California apartment in 1975. Photograph by Nancy Wong

Another super informative discovery was Chin’s involvement in The Day of Remembrance event that eventually lead to the reparation towards the interned Japanese Americans. In the film, he also fiercely attacks Japanese American Citizen’s League (JACL) for the role they played during the war and their attitude not to face the history. Mike Masaoka, the war time head of JACL who convinced Japanese Americans to follow the Government order to go to internment camps and convinced Nisei sons to volunteer to the deadly 442^nd Regimental Combat Team, Chin reveals, worked for FBI. That was news to me. Watch the film for more info. Mike Masaoka’s Wikipedia page has no mention of FBI.

In one very entertaining interview on Frank Chin’s Blogsite, Curtis Choy says that his production company website (chunkmoonhunter.com) once existed and carried “interesting (to me) historical stuff, art, soundclips, etc.” but now it’s defunct. He sells his work on Vimeo and Amazon Prime. “I want to put that stuff up on a blog, but lack enthusiasm. I could use some young person's help.” Anyone out there who could help him out? He makes important films!