Bob Santos

Bob Santos (February 25, 1934 – August 27, 2016) was an American minority-rights activist from Seattle who worked to preserve Seattle's Chinatown and International District (CID). Santos was a member of the Gang of Four and a prominent member of the Filipino American community of Seattle. He was involved in civil rights activism and mentorship, the creation of the Minority Executive Director's Coalition, the creation of InterIm, and the expansion of services for the CID.

Early life Robert Nicholas "Bob" Santos was born in the Chinatown-International District in Seattle, Washington on February 25, 1934. His parents were Virginia Nicol Santos and Marcario "Sammy" Santos, who married in 1931, and Bob's older brother Sammy Jr. was born in 1932.

Virginia was born around 1912. She was Indipino, the daughter of a Filipino Canadian lumber worker and a Native American-French Canadian. After her mother died, Virginia's family moved to Seattle. Virginia attended Broadway High School, then the University of Washington while working as a waitress at the Rizal Cafe. Sammy was born in 1902 in San Mateo, Rizal. The U.S. had annexed the Philippines in 1898, sparking warfare there, and Sammy joined the U.S. Navy in search of economic opportunity. Sammy then became a boxer in the U.S., adopting the name "Sockin' Sammy", and eventually moved to Seattle as a local celebrity. Sammy Sr. lived in the hotel until 1952, going blind in 1945 from his boxing injuries. Bob recalled that almost all of the hotel's occupants were men, mostly Filipinos. His father lived in a 9 by 13 foot room, and had many visitors, from prostitutes who dined with the family at dinnertime to drunk men grieving breakups or gambling losses. The family cooked on a hot plate in the room, and kept their belongings in the room's closet. Santos recalled that this was the first time he recognized racism around him, and he and other Filipino and Chinese Americans wore badges stating their ancestry to avoid assault by white people. He then switched to Immaculate Conception School, followed by O'Dea High School, graduating in 1952. In high school, Santos played sports, worked delivery and restaurant jobs, and spent two summers at an Alaska fish cannery. He experienced racism at O'Dea, where Filipino non-athletes were ostracized, and at the cannery, where white workers received better quarters and food than Filipinos did. Santos also learned about the strength of the Cannery Workers Union Local 7 to shape worker options. He later worked for the Knights of Columbus as an insurance salesman.

Catholic civil rights activism During the Civil Rights Movement, Seattle's archbishop, Thomas Connolly, promoted the involvement of local Catholic clergy. He supported Walter Hubbard's creation of the Catholic Interracial Council of Seattle, which was the church's unofficial civil rights organization. Hubbard and Santos were drinking buddies, and in the mid-1960s Hubbard invited Santos to join a council march to St. James Cathedral for open housing. At the time, houses in many Seattle neighborhoods had racial restrictive covenants banning them from being sold to people of color and Jews. Hubbard asked Santos to hold a banner for the march, and Santos said he was pleasantly surprised to find his photograph on the front page of a Catholic newspaper the next day. Santos began attending council meetings at the St. Peter Claver Center afterwards. This was the same building that had hosted his first elementary school, Maryknoll.

Santos continued to attend nonviolent civil rights demonstrations. He protested in marches against the sale of Class H liquor licenses to white-only clubs like the Rainier Club, Elks and Moose, and he joined the United Farm Workers' grape and lettuce boycott pickets outside Safeways. CARITAS was a state-funded program for students in remedial classes to get one-on-one tutoring from college students and high school seniors. The program also met at the St. Peter Claver Center and served mostly Black students, as well as some Asian and white students. Santos managed the program from the center and visited schools to recruit tutors. One of these was the free breakfast program run by the Black Panthers, headed by Aaron and Elmer Dixon.

InterIm and protests for the CID By 1965, the Chinatown-International District, Seattle had high vacancy and crime rates and poor governmental support. Much of this was due to the city and state-level decision to build I-5 through the heart of the neighborhood in the 1950s. Residents of the CID vehemently opposed the decision but were ignored, and many businesses, homes, and churches were destroyed. After King County Council decided to build the Kingdome next to the CID in 1972, he joined community members in protesting and suing to stop the construction. Protestors argued that the stadium would force five nearby hotels to close, which housed many of the CID's Chinese immigrant families and elderly Filipino men. After a year of lawsuits and organizing, the neighborhood was not able to stop the construction, so they pivoted to pushing for social services and support for the neighborhood that had never previously existed, along with representation during the stadium's construction and management.

Spellman followed up on some of the activist demands, starting the process of researching healthcare needs in the CID, which led to funding for the volunteer-run Asian Community Health Clinic. It was able to move into a one-room space across from Hing Hay Park, and grew into the present-day International Community Health Services organization. However, Santos ran the Seattle Chinatown/International District PDA from 1989 to 1993.

Santos also cultivated organizing connections across communities in Seattle. He formed the Gang of Four with Bernie Whitebear, Larry Gossett, and Roberto Maestas, and mentored younger Asian American activists as "Uncle Bob".

The Gang of Four created the Minority Executive Director's Coalition in 1982. Tuesdays reportedly became known as "Bob Santos' Night".

Santos was also known for wearing a panama hat. When Santos' fellow activist Roberto Maestas had been chosen as an outsider King Neptune in 2004, Santos had laughed uncontrollably before Maestas decided to take the role for the sake of "the people".

InterIm CDA built an affordable housing complex called Uncle Bob's Place, which his family named after him in his honor. his son John Santos created the building's logo.

After Bush Garden closed in 2021, Karen Akada Sakata, its owner, decided to move it into the first floor of Uncle Bob's Place. InterIm CDA designed a panama hat to mount on Bush Garden's relocated sign, and it was created by Haskett Works for a December 2025 mounting. The hat was placed in honor of Santos' history of advocacy for the neighborhood and his devotion to karaoke and meetings at Bush Garden.

Works