Bob Santos Never Forgot His Filipino Roots

Older residents of the International District remember young Bob Santos, spiffy in his Marine uniform, guiding his father, Sammy Santos, through the streets and alleys and doorways.

Sammy Santos was a celebrity then. He was a featherweight boxer, a crowd-pleaser who fought all comers when Seattle was known as a good fight town. The city's boxing clubs produced such aces as Dode Bercott, Ah Wing Lee, Joe Calder, Little Dempsey; later came Harry "Kid" Matthews and two middleweight champions, Freddy Steele and Al Hostak.

Among fight fans, especially Asian Americans, Sammy Santos was somebody. Even though he had long before quit fighting and was now blind, using his cane and his son to find his way around, the old man was a celebrity.

The other day Bob Santos talked about his father. "Once there was a bigger guy bullying a smaller one," Bob remembered. "My father said, `Bobby, take me over to that man. Put my left hand on his right shoulder and get out of the way."

From that position, Sammy had measured a thousand chins. He brought a right cross to the bully's jaw, and it was lights out. The bully went down from a punch by a blind man and Sammy said, "Now, Bobby, I think it is time we leave this place."

Bob lived in a single hotel room in the International District, back when it was called Chinatown, at Sixth Avenue South and South Jackson Street with his father.

"We had a hot plate, and all our worldly possessions were in one

closet," he recalled. He was reared by his father, and sometimes vice versa, because Bob's mother had died as a young woman.

Fred Cordova, manager of information services at the University of Washington, is a historian for Seattle's Filipino community, which numbers some 15,000. Cordova said, "Those of us who grew up with Bob knew this absolutely: He never forgot his roots."

Ben Woo, a force in the International District, called Bob "a real renaissance man, an intellectual and a hard-core activist."

"I think the Filipinos could be a force," Bob said, "if we could ever get our act together."

He is not a tight-jawed crusader. Bob laughs a lot, his humor is self-deprecating, and he enjoys making light of tough situations. He is an accomplished karaoke singer; he can do Sinatra well and gives a funny imitation of Jerry Lewis.

But all his life Bob has fought for his neighbors, for safer streets, places for the elderly, a better break for International District merchants, low-income housing. He single-handedly got use of the Federal Building as a place for homeless women to sleep.

"He's a provocateur," Sharon Tomiko Santos said of her husband. "He talks around things, but before you know it he gets to the point."

Bob fought the Kingdome, the new Mariner ballpark and Paul Allen's monstrous football palace. Not that he was against sports - he loves sports - but he thought rich people shouldn't be allowed to adversely affect a small neighborhood.

Then, of course, there was civil rights. He got himself arrested in the 1960s, and he can make a funny story out of that.

His fellow demonstrators included Roberto Maestas, now the director of El Centro de la Raza; Larry Gossett, now on the County Council; and Bernie Whitebear, head of the United Indians of All Tribes.

As for Bob, he's now with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, working under HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo. Bob is the eyes and ears of the federal government all over Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska.

And that is a helluva long way to come from a hot plate and a blind father in a single room in a rundown hotel at Sixth and Jackson.

Emmett Watson's column appears Tuesdays in the Local section of The Times.