7/24/2019 106 South Park / SF / JoanMay Cordova

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What is the significance of historic properties for our communities?

My cousin, Professor Dawn B. Mabalon posted this photo of 106 South Park, an apartment hotel in San

Franciscos SOMA, owned and stil l managed by the 95 year-old masonic fraternal organizationthe

Gran Oriente Filipino (GOF).

Is there any other Filipino American community organization that can claim to have provided low -costhousing - in various properties theyve owned in several states - while continuously serving our

communities for 95 years?*

This building, like other properties the GOF owned throughout the years, was paid for and maintained

through generous donations of time and resources by Gran Oriente Fi lipino membersthe many

Fil ipino immigrant pioneers whove worked in fields, kitchens, factories, canneries and other low paying

jobs. As a community oral historian, Ive interviewed many GOF members who spoke of sacrifices they

made in order to maintain GOF properties while still being of service to their GOF brothers and their

extended families and communities. After li fetimes of unwavering service, GOF elders spoke of pride in

all that their fraternity had accomplished. They emphatically expressed how much they wanted

succeeding generations to maintain properties theydworked so hard to secure as their legacy for futuregenerations.

I hope that generations of young peopleand especially great-grandchildren of founders and members

will be able to visit 106 S. Park in San Francisco and learn about how their eldersall of our Manongs

and Manangs - maintained not just properties, but their dedication to serving our communities. Their

legacy goes beyond Fil ipino American and Asian American history; their history is American history for

us all.

*As national president emerita of FANHS (the Filipino American National Historical Society), I dont know

of any other Filipino American organizations with comparable history. Im writingnownot as an

official member of the Gran Oriente Filipino (a fraternity only men can join)but as a GOF daughter of a33rd degree Mason and GOF Trusteewho died (with three others in the family) in service to the GOF

with love, @ForCommunities - Joan May Timtiman Cordova, 26 February 2016