Removing the plaque (Credit: City of Denver)
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and the Asian American and Pacific Islander community removed an anti-Chinese plaque from a street in what used to be the city’s Chinatown earlier this month.
The plaque, which read “Hop Alley/Chinese Riot of 1880,” marked an anti-Chinese riot that destroyed the city’s Chinatown and left one person dead.
It was removed on Aug. 8 following mounting criticism about its offensive and incomplete description of the deadly event, which is believed to have been the city’s first race riot.
Removing the plaque “eliminates a misleading narrative about Denver’s historic Chinatown that has stigmatized the Chinese people then and now,” said William Wei, a historian at the University of Colorado Boulder and a board member for Colorado Asian Pacific United, in a statement.
The anti-Chinese riot occurred on the night of Halloween in 1880. It started as a scuffle between two Chinese men and several white patrons at one of Denver’s saloons before snowballing into an out-of-control brawl on Wazee Street, according to History Colorado.
Eventually, some 3,000 white people formed a mob and began terrorizing the city’s Chinese residents. They destroyed Chinese-owned property and businesses, beat Chinese residents and ultimately killed a Chinese man named Look Young.
Members of the white mob caused $53,000 worth of property damage (about $1.5 million today), but they were never held accountable for their actions. The city’s Chinese residents were left to pick up the pieces on their own and were never compensated for the damage.
We had a chance to right a wrong,” Hancock told KUSA-TV. “It’s never too late to apologize for something that’s happened.”
The plaque’s text was riddled with inaccuracies and offensive statements. It described the incident as a “Chinese riot,” instead of an anti-Chinese riot. It also included the derogatory phrase “Hop Alley” to explain where the incident took place, referring to the area’s opium dens. It heralded the white people who “protected” Chinese immigrants, going so far as to include some of their names. At the same time, the plaque did not name Young, the Chinese man killed in the riot.
“While the city cannot erase past injustices against Chinese immigrants and the Asian American and Pacific Island communities, the city owes them a long-overdue apology,” the city officials wrote. “An admission of the wrongs committed and its failure to correct them is a first step towards recognizing and honoring their contributions and can contribute to racial reconciliation.”
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