Bill Sorro – Presente!: Beloved I-Hotel, Labor and Asian American Community Leader Passes On

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.

Bill was born and raised in San Francisco's Fillmore District among African Americans and Asian Americans, and raised his family in Bernal Heights. He had a unique ability to bring diverse groups of people together around a common political agenda with humor and a collective sense of ‘Ohana’ or family. Sorro was a 25 year trade unionist, socialist and founding member of Ironworkers for Union Democracy in Oakland. He helped build the Asian American Movement as a member of the Kalayaan Collective and the Union of Democratic Filipinos (KDP.)

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