International House Berkeley

International House is a laboratory for a new kind of experiment–the day-to-day practice of international fellowship among men and women. –John D. Rockefeller Jr., I-House Benefactor RESISTANCE TO INTERNATIONAL HOUSE IN BERKELEY A llen C. Blaisdell, Edmonds' former assistant in New York, was appointed in 1928 to be the first executive director of the Berkeley I-House. Blaisdell was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Pomona College, who developed his cross-cultural awareness during a teaching assignment in Japan. Soon after his appointment, Blaisdell encountered considerable resistance in the community. There was resistance to men and women living under one roof; there was hostility toward foreigners; and the notion that people of color would live with "whites" in an integrated setting was, to many, simply incredible. Many Berkeley landlords protested the construction of the House, fearing an influx of foreigners. More than 800 people gathered in Berkeley to protest racial integration in the proposed International House. At that meeting, Delilah Beasley, a Black reporter for the Oakland Tribune, passionately defended the concept to a disgruntled and stunned audience. And it was Beasley who stood up to the protests of property owners who feared that I-House would cause Berkeley to be overrun with Blacks and Asians. A llen Blaisdell noted that one of the purposes of the House was to draw foreign students—particularly Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, and Indians—out of their semi-ghetto housing situations and into an international community. When Harry Edmonds came to Berkeley to establish a site, he chose Piedmont Avenue, in part, because it was the home of fraternities and sororities, which then excluded foreigners and people of color. By proposing the site on Piedmont Avenue, Edmonds sought to strike bigotry and exclusiveness right hard in the nose. Originally, the north side of the campus, an area ravaged by fire, was suggested, but Edmonds decided that this was the "back door" to the campus and insisted that International House must be at the "front door." Here on Piedmont Avenue, the House faced the Pacific and so brought a symbolic joining of West and East. OPENING OF I-HOUSE BERKELEY I nternational House officially opened on August 18, 1930, with single rooms for 338 men and 115 women, primarily graduate students. It was the largest student housing complex in the Bay Area and the first coeducational residence west of New York City at the time, the University itself would not officially recognize coeducational housing. But because I-House was managed by a self-supporting corporation legally independent of the University, the coeducational concept became a reality. The intercultural housing facility also raised fears in the community about "mixed marriages." And, indeed, many of the first interracial and cross-national marriages in the area were "born" at I-House. International House under construction, April 1930 2

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