The accidental hoteliers who revolutionized the American hospitality industry
The astounding success of the Patels from Gujarat in the American hospitality enterprise is a unique phenomenon. They control a massive share of the industry’s assets, employ millions, and contribute tremendously to the U.S. economy, enabling them to dominate and wield influence to prosper. For them, the hospitality business has become the most coveted. Their impact on the American hospitality industry is extraordinary.
Much is written about the Patels’ success, but more exploration is needed to learn how and when such a colossal business enterprise originated. However, South Asian scholars long considered the Patel narrative sketchy because it lacked archival depth. Hitherto, no efforts were made to tell the founders’ tale.
SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT
My book, Surat To San Francisco: How the Patels from Gujarat Established the Hotel Business in California 1942-1960, drew on undiscovered diaries, memoirs, and oral interviews of their descendants to compile their historical narration and perhaps lift them from the unforgotten corners of history to their rightful place in our chronicle. The book details how three Patels from Surat surreptitiously arrived in America to help their farming families escape economic misery. Unbeknownst to them, they would lay the foundation of the hotel business and change how the Patels would make a living in America.
The Patel founding fathers’ success wasn’t only their own; it paved the way for many future generations of Patels, a large majority of whom are AAHOA Members, to become successful hoteliers. The founders’ journey is an immigrant success story that epitomizes America as the land of opportunity. They blazed trails in the hospitality industry, and their influence can be seen in the tens of thousands of Patels who followed in their footsteps, metamorphosing the business.
The Patel Founding Fathers. [L-R] Kanji Manchhu Deai, Nanalal Patel, and D. Lal
KNOW YOUR ROOTS
Nanalal Patel of Khara Butwada, Kanji Manchhu Desai of Digas, and D. Lal, aka Bhikhu Bhakta of Orna, never considered settling in America when they left Surat. Nanalal went to Panama in 1922, and Kanjibhai and D. Lal went to Trinidad in 1930 but needed to earn more to remit money home. The three were inspired by the prevalent talk of America being the land of plenty and those who went there earned big. However, America had shuttered its doors with anti-immigrant laws of 1917 and 1924, barring Asians, including Indians, from entering.
Undaunted, they entered America illegally, found farming jobs in Yuba City, CA, and worked for 10 cents an hour while facing frequent immigration raids, racial discrimination, and harassment. Their resilience and determination to succeed in the face of such adversity are truly inspiring. They survived because they were tenacious, determined, stoic, and unwilling to return empty-handed.
From 1937 to 1942, they continued to work on the farms for an itinerant living and penury wages, but an opportunity came during World War II, when the American government – shamefully, in hindsight – relocated Japanese-Americans to internment camps. The Nisei owner of a 32-room single-room occupancy (SRO) hotel who needed to report to the camp offered Kanji Manchhu her hotel as caretaker, and the lease terms were highly generous: a $350 down payment and $75 a month rent for five years.
This watershed event marked the serendipitous beginning of the first Patel hotel in America – the Ford Hotel, on 6th and K streets in downtown Sacramento, CA, on October 15, 1942. Room rates were 50 cents a day or $3.50 a week. Kanji Manchhu was the first Patel hotelier in America. He’d discovered something better than toiling in the San Joaquin sun. He sheltered and fed his now famous khichdi to his acolytes, who worked gratis and performed hotel chores. He barely earned $100 a month but had transformed from a farmhand to a businessman, an achievement his friends and family lauded.
Patel properties in San Francisco: The Perramont Hotel (top), the Hotel Alder (bottom right), and The Henry Hotel in San Francisco
AS THE STORY GROWS
Kanji Manchhu moved to San Francisco in 1947 and leased Hotel Goldfield at 157 4th Street. Here, he began to preach his now famous “Patel Manifesto” to those who had arrived legally under the Luce-Celler Act of 1946, which allowed the immigration of 100 Indians per year. The newcomers found it hard to find jobs as San Francisco wasn’t yet a mecca of liberalism, and racial discrimination was still rampant. The visionary Kanji Manchhu thought the hotel business concept was the answer to the Patels’ job conundrum and aggressively preached, “Here in America, there is nothing better for a Patel than to run a hotel.”
He initially encouraged newcomers to work on the farm until they gained language proficiency and saved about $1,500 – enough to lease an inexpensive SRO. He also arranged handshake loans for those a few hundred short with no contract, repayment schedule, or interest, allowing them to pay back by drib and drab. By 1955, Kanji Manchhu was the catalyst for creating 30 new Patel hoteliers in the South of Market. His vision and leadership transformed the lives of many Patels, providing them with a path to success in America.
THE SHADOW LOOMS LARGE
Kanji Manchhu left an indelible legacy behind. Within a few decades, his disciples consolidated and expanded the business, first in the Bay Area and then nationwide, helping grow his small innovation into a massive entity that has yet to reach its peak. The late Stanley Turkel, an early supporter of AAHOA, called Kanji Manchhu Desai one of the great American hoteliers and put him on the pedestal along with Conrad Hilton, J. Willard Marriott, Howard Johnson, John Bowman, Henry Flagler, John Hammons, and Kemmons Wilson – all contemporaries of Kanjibhai who contributed enormously to the development of the hotel industry. It’s a fitting honor for the man from Surat, though he has yet to achieve the recognition he rightly deserves among our diaspora.
The hotelier wives arrived in 1957 to ease their workload and admirably performed household and business duties. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 helped hoteliers sponsor their blood relatives, giving rise to chain migration. Many obtained green cards by investing $10,0000 in hotels and motels. By 1965, the business registered steady growth, with some Patels moving to the North of Market, and a trend to own rather than lease began with Bhula Vanmali Patel purchasing William Penn Hotel. Kalyanji Patel was the first Patel to own a motel – Mart Motel, on 9th Street. Following their mentor’s manifesto, Dahya Ratanji, Bhula Vanmali, and Dhanji Vakil assumed leadership in the 1960s and created more than 1,000 new hoteliers. The rush to own a piece of the vast American hospitality landscape was on, and that juggernaut continues unabated to this day.
