Celebration: Book Release, Manong Joaquin, Collected Verse of Joaquin Legaspi

Readings from the newly reprinted collected verse of Joaquin Legaspi (1896-1975) compiled by Jovina D.Navarro and published by Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc. Joaquin Legaspi was a poet, artist, community worker, organizer and an important figure connected with the Manilatown I-Hotel community from the 1920s to the 1970s. Speakers: Jovina Navarro, Juanita Tamayo Lott, Estella Habal.

Jovina Navarro, Ph.D. Clinical and Community Psychology, Retired Psychologist Counseling Services, San Jose State University. Navarro taught Asian American Studies classes at San Francisco State, San Jose State and University of California at Davis. She worked with Joaquin Legaspi and Bullet Marasigan at Self Help for the Elderly and Manilatown Multiservice Center in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Navarro did community organizing in the South of Market area of San Francisco with the Pilipino Organizing Committee (POC) in the 1980’s.

Juanita Tamayo Lott grew up in the 1950s in the Western Addition and Haight Ashbury. A student leader at San Francisco State in the historic 1968 BSU/TWLF strike for relevant education and the 1969 creation of the first School of Ethnic Studies, she was mentored by Jovina Navarro and Joaquin Legaspi. Author of several books, including Golden Children: Legacy of Ethnic Studies, SF State. A Memoir, her poem to Mr. Legaspi is in this reprint. The Juanita Tamayo Lott Collections reside in the San Francisco History Center, SFPL and The Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Dr. Estella Habal, activist and scholar, Professor Emerita, at San Jose State University, taught courses in Asian American history and Women Studies from 1999–2014. She was a member of the KDP (Katiupunan ng mga Demokratikong Pilipino), a Filipino revolutionary organization which fought against the Philippine President Marcos dictatorship and for democratic rights in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s. She also fought to stop the eviction of its tenants in 1977, and told the story in a book, San Francisco’s International Hotel: Mobilizing the Filipino American Community in the Anti-Eviction Movement (Temple 2007). In the 1990s, she helped to resurrect low-income housing at the new International Hotel and open up the International Hotel Manilatown Center in 2005. She has four children and eight grandchildren.

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