***Under Development***

Finding Aid 

Summary

People Against Chinatown Evictions (PACE) was a community organization that came into being in the1970s in response to Honolulu urban renewal policies that threatened to evict and displace low and moderate income residents in Chinatown, Honolulu.  PACE was formed out of Third Arm, a community service organization that aimed to fill the social needs of residents and workers of the Chinatown area.  

Hawaiʻi  became the 50th State of the U.S. in 1959, and the Hawaiian economy was shifting from agricultural plantations to tourism. Many low income residents in Honolulu’s Chinatown were immigrants (Filipino, Portuguese, Chinese) and Native Hawaiians. Many of the residents worked in the plantation industries and lived in Chinatown due to its housing affordability, community culture, and transportation accessibility.  

In 1949,  Federal urban renewal policies came into law.  The Honolulu Redevelopment Agency (HRA) could choose which neighborhood they believed were “blighted” or decaying, and could qualify for federal urban renewal funds.   Chinatown was considered eligible for urban renewal.  Buildings and businesses like the Aloha Hotel, Pauahi Hale, 4A Hotel, Komeya Apartments, Shimaya Shoten, New Kukui Cafe, Maunakea Hale, Nina’s Cafe, 1189 River Street were affected by the redevelopment plans. In a Third Arm report, those who would be traumatically affected by the redevelopment would be 1) residents, 2) business (large and small), 3) property owners (large and small), 4) gamblers, 5) māhus (homosexuals), 6) drunks and winos, 7) patrons, clientele and regulars…(Cookman p. 6).  

Members of PACE were residents and workers of the Chinatown community, as well as were concerned members from the University of Hawaiʻi and surrounding areas.  By the time of the evictions, many of the residents who participated in the defense of their homes, and in advocacy for relocation alternatives, were in the ages of retirement, or were recent immigrants.    There were other eviction struggles in Waihole-Waikane, Niumalu-Nawili (Kauai), Ota Camp, Hale Mohalu, Heʻeia Kea, Mokauea, among other sites, that networked and shared information with the Chinatown anti-eviction efforts.

This collection features the research materials, organizational records, publications, maps, and pictures of Third Arm, and then of PACE, as the Chinatown community organized themselves to communicate to the City and County of Honolulu and the Department of Housing and Community Development about the needs of low- and moderate income residents of Chinatown. The records document the processes these community organizations engaged in to connect with the residents and workers of Chinatown, and to develop local leaders to advocate for the residents who would be displaced so they would be relocated to decent, affordable housing.  Some victories were the relocation of Aloha Hotel tenants to the Maunakea Hale, 4A Hotel tenants to the Teddi Duncan Apartments, and the cancellation of the Smith-Beretania high-income condominium project into a public park and municipal parking structure.

Source: 

Sonja Cookman. "Remembering Chinatown: Examining Eviction Struggles in Chinatown from the 1970s-1980s." Hawaiʻi Peopleʻs Fund. https://www.hawaiipeoplesfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/REMEMBERING-CHINATOWN.pdf 

Provenance

This collection of PACE papers was transferred to the University of Hawaiʻi School of Law Library from the Center for Oral History at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.  These papers were originally brought to the University through Joy Wong, a former PACE organizer, to Ethnic Studies Professor Davianna McGregor, former PACE member and Director of the Center for Oral History.  Micah Mizukami, the Associate Director of the Center for Oral History, contacted Ellen-Rae Cachola, the Archives Manager at the University of Hawai’i School of Law Library, to preserve the PACE papers because they specialized more in oral history presentation and did not have capacity for print and photo archival preservation.

Box Contents

Series 1: Housing Surveys 1977-1980, Box 1

This box includes Housing Surveys from 1978 related to interviews of tenants and residents of businesses and buildings in Chinatown slated for eviction due to planned demolition to redevelop the area. Lists of housing survey interviewees names are listed.  Buildings and businesses were listed:

• 1108 Maunakea
• 1130 Maunakea
• 1161 Maunakea Street
• 1189 River St.
• 1189
• 143 N. Beretania
• 4-A
• 6-Pack Liquor
• Aloha Hotel + Wentoles Hale
• Cebu
• City Villa
• C.Q. Yee Hop
• Crystals
• Dance Hall 78
• Fong's Building
• Golden Wall
• Hocking Hotel
• Komeya Hale
• Lai Fong Building
• Lau's Place
• Loo Chows
• Maunakea Hale
• Old Lau's Place
• R-H
• Riverside Tailor Shop
• Roosevelt Hale
• Tan Sing Dramatic Association
• Ted's Barbershop
• Wimpy's + Esquire
• Wing Coffee
• Wong's
• Yee Yee Tong Building
• Block A
• Block 2
• Block 4
• Block 5
• Block 6
• Block 7
• Block 8
• Block 10
• Block 12

In addition,  the Aloha Hotel Resolution of 1977, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Resources grant program information are included.

Series 2: PACE Records 1971-1980, Box 2

This box includes records created or accumulated by the People Against Chinatown Eviction (PACE) organization. It includes records such as petitions, workshop documents, law suits, court documents, hearing documents, resolution and ordinances, writ of eviction, committee documents, building complaint reports, meeting minutes, memorandums, grant proposals, letters (negotiations, residents), correspondence, photos, surveys (small businesses), news articles, flyer invitations, Revolutionary Communist Party, celebration committees, slogans/skits/chants/songs, testimonies.

Organizations listed include Smith-Beretania Housing Project, Headrick Development Inc. Honolulu City Council Planning and Zoning, U.S. Department of Housing and Community Development, Department of Land Utilization, Hale Mohalu, Maunakea Hale, 4-A, Catholic Action, Opihi Alliance in a Nuclear Free Hawaii, American Friends Service Committee, International Association of the Machinists and Aerospace Workers, U.P.W., Micronesia Support Committee, Windward District Samoan Community, Laie Samoan Community, Nanakuli Samoan Community, and City Arts.  Individuals such as George Akahane and Frank Fasi were named.

Series 2: PACE Records 1974-1980, Box 3

This box includes records created and accumulated by PACE for their operational purposes: steering Committee chronological reviews, papers, agendas, outlines, time tables, organizing plans, and meeting notes; letters of correspondence between residents, legal teams, and government officials; eviction orders; court documents; ordinance; testimonies; maps of Chinatown; newsletters and mailing lists, newspaper clippings, essays.

Buildings and businesses mentioned

• Fong Building
• Pauahi Project
• Smith-Beretania
• Kaka'ako Special Design District
• 1130 Mauna Kea Street
• 1189 River Street
• 4-A N. Hotel
• Angeline's Barbershop
• Balalongs and Naboras
• Block B Businesses
• Clinic
• Fong Building
• Hale Mohalu
• Lai Fong Tenants
• Maunakea Hale
• Nieveres Tailor Shop
• Pauahi Hale
• Pauahi Project
• Roosevelt Sweatshop
• Ted's Barbershop
• Lau's
• Department of Public Works
  Honolulu City Council

Individuals mentioned:

• Wayson Chow Attorney at Law
• Patrick K. Lau
• Barry Chung

Series 2: PACE Records 1839-1989, Box 4

This box contains information reflecting research and teaching about Hawaiʻi land, demographics, and political-economic histories, which may have informed, or were products of, PACE tenant organizing and housing advocacy efforts.  Examples include articles and syllabi related to Hawaiian culture, land, population, legal and political-economic issues. For example, topics on the people and demographics of Hawai’i, land tenure history, the Bakke decision, the baking sector, the Big Five, military resource management, oceanography, and American influence in Hawaiʻi are covered.  

Other records include PACE records on the building condition criteria for the Honolulu Redevelopment Agency, Kewalo Lunalilo-Auxiliary, Kokea project, Halawa Valley, Trustees of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate,  Third Arm Meeting Records, PACE resident membership, information on organizing against redevelopment in Chinatown, the Chinatown Citizens Committee, Smith Beretania Apts parking problems, maps of Chinatown, committee reports, Kalihi Palama, urban renewal, tenant roster, Bakke Humanities, Great Mahele 1848, Kuleana Act of 1850, PACE goals, Community Development Block Grant Program, HUD Fact Sheets on Housing Programs, Correspondence N. King Street Properties - Ota Camp, Chinatown, and Catholic Charities.

Series 3: Media, Box 5

This box contains ektachrome slides, pictures, CDs, documents and buttons.  The images in the slides, pictures and CDs include digitized documents and images from Tai-Anne, John Witeck, Diane Fujimura, Sandy,  PACE Slides, Ed Greevy, Joy regarding topics such as the Teddi Duncan Apartments, Chinatown Demolition, City Hall Demos, Chinatown people doing PACE work, 4-A Residents, Lauʻs Building, Fabric Factory,Third Arm, Defend Waiahole-Waikane. Images relate to Chinatown building conditions, social advocacy, solidarity with other eviction sites, organizational pamphlets, and slideshows which may have been used for organizationʻs visual communications.

Other Resources

City and Cty of Honolulu v. Toyama, 598 P.2d 168 (1979)

Mast, Robert and Anne B. Mast.  Autobiography of Protest in Hawaiʻi.  (Chapters on Mary Choy and Wayson Chow).  Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1996.