Al Robles

Al Robles, a Filipino American poet and activist, was born Alfred A. Robles on February 16, 1930, in San Francisco. 

Robles was an early member of Kearny Street Workshop, the oldest Asian Pacific American multidisciplinary arts organization in the United States, established in 1972 at San Francisco’s International Hotel. With other members of the Kearny Street Workshop, Robles organized against the 1977 eviction of elderly Filipino and Chinese residents of the International Hotel. 

Robles’s two books of poetry are Rappin’ with Ten Thousand Carabaos in the Dark (UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 1996), which begins with poems about the Manilatown manongs—a term of endearment in Ilokano that usually means “older brother”—and Ifugao Mountain: Paghahanap Sa Bundok Ng Ifugao (Children’s Book Press, 1977). 

Robles died on May 2, 2009.