I-Hotel

In the book "Roots of Justice" by Larry R Salomon, the battle for I-Hotel is discussed and I found the story to be particularly interesting, especially as an event I had never heard of. I-Hotel's story really represents an issue that is not uncommon in recent history, the issue is that of private versus public ownership.

We have very clear laws regarding copyright and ideas, but at some point the content becomes owned by the public. This not only encourages new ideas and growth, but helps protect the public from infringment as the idea becomes woven into culture. But at what point does a building, property, or other ownable body become so great that it should be owned by the public, well their opinions differ wildly.

The I-Hotel is one such case, with many parrallels to later Los Angeles Community Garden, where it has become culturally important to a group of people. And, not just a few people, but enough that when its tenets were told to vacate thousands showed up to show their support and attempt to prevent the demise of the hotel. Ultimatly, their tactics proved unsucessful in the sense that the hotel was subsequently demolished, however they won greater visibility to many issues when the event was televised and gained momentum that would carry on through the birth of other social projects in the area.

Like many movements, I-Hotel made use of nearby College students, when the hotel was first called to close down on the basis of it not being up to code, the students put their funds and man power into the Hotel in an attempt to renovate. But, that was not the only way the tenets would have attempts made on them to vacate. An order to vacate was passed through the courts on the basis of ownership and there was little that could be done. Despite the age of the tenets and expressed cultural importance the battle for I-Hotel was lost.
In retrospect, I cannot say for certain that anything could be done, just as there was little that could be done to save the Los Angeles Community Garden. My only wish was that the momentum from both of these movements, and I imagine many others, would swell into a larger scale movement, one that would hopefully result in reformation of ownership laws and give birth to more fair ways that equitible exchanges could be made for places deemed of cultural importance. But, in the least, the momentum from the movement gave way to a united Asian populace that would combat the racism of the times and lend way to acceptance.