Ricardo Alvarado: Capturing a Cultural Legacy

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Ricardo Alvarado: Capturing a Cultural Legacy

New exhibition features the local photography of first-generation Filipino American photographer, Ricardo Alvarado.

SAN FRANCISCO In 1928, at the age of fourteen, Ricardo Ocreto Alvarado (1914–76) left his family in the Philippines to start a new life in the United States. He eventually settled in San Francisco where he lived for nearly fifty years. Alvarado found employment as a domestic worker and janitor in Nob Hill for room and board and as a dishwasher in North Beach during the evenings. In 1942, he enlisted in the US Army’s 1st Filipino Infantry Regiment and served in combat in the South Pacific during World War II as a medic. After the war, Alvarado became a cook at the Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco’s Presidio. The new position enabled him to purchase a Graflex Speed Graphic camera, commonly used by professional photographers. He spent his free time mastering the large-format camera, which required 4x5-inch sheet film, resulting in high-quality prints that he developed in a small darkroom in his apartment. Alvarado photographed the local, multiethnic communities that surrounded him. Friends and relatives often asked him to shoot celebratory occasions such as weddings, baptisms, and birthdays. He also photographed house parties in the Fillmore and Bayview, his coworkers at the Letterman Army Hospital, and agricultural workers in nearby rural areas. Alvarado’s poignant photographs thoughtfully document these vital communities that might have otherwise never appeared on film. Shortly after marrying, Alvarado retired his camera and devoted his life to his wife and two children, Janet and Joseph. When he died in 1976, he had amassed a tremendous archive of nearly 3,000 negatives and photographs. In 1998, his daughter Janet established The Alvarado Project to ensure the preservation of her father’s unique cultural record of Filipino American life in California. Stanford University Libraries now permanently holds the collection of Alvarado’s work, and Janet continues to work tirelessly to share her father’s legacy.

Special thank you to Janet Alvarado and Stanford University Libraries for making this exhibition possible.

Visit sfomuseum.org for more information.

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Ricardo Alvarado: Capturing a Cultural Legacy is located pre-security on the Departures Level in Terminal 3 of the San Francisco International Airport. This exhibition is accessible to all airport visitors from December 9, 2024 to November 3, 2025. There is no charge to view the exhibition.

About SFO Museum

Established in 1980 by the San Francisco Airport Commission, SFO Museum’s mission is to delight, engage, and inspire a global audience with programming on a broad range of subjects; to collect, preserve, interpret, and share the history of commercial aviation; and to enrich the public experience at San Francisco International Airport. The Museum has been accredited by the American Alliance of Museums since 1999 and retains the distinction of being the only accredited museum in an airport.

SFO Museum operates more than twenty-five sites throughout the Airport terminals, including fourteen galleries that exhibit a rotating schedule of art, history, photography, science, and cultural exhibitions. Among the sites is the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library and Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum, which houses a permanent collection of more than 160,000 objects related to the history of commercial aviation. To browse current and past exhibitions, research our collection, or for more information, please visit www.sfomuseum.org. Follow us on www.facebook.com/sfomuseum, www.x.com/sfomuseum, or www.instagram.com/sfomuseum.

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