Remove plaque (Source: City of Denver)
Earlier this month, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and the Asian American and Pacific Islander community removed an anti-China plaque from a street that was once the city’s Chinatown.
The plaque reads “Hop Alley/Chinese Riot of 1880,” marking an anti-Chinese riot that devastated the city’s Chinatown and left one person dead.
It was removed on Aug. 8 following mounting criticism of its offensiveness and incomplete description of the deadly incident, which is believed to be the city’s first racial riot.
William Wei, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a board member of the Colorado Asia-Pacific Consortium, said in a statement that removing the plaque “eliminates misleading narratives about Denver’s historic Chinatown that were and It brings shame to the Chinese now.”
The anti-Chinese riot took place on Halloween night in 1880. What started as a scuffle between two Chinese men and several white patrons at a Denver pub before snowballed into an out-of-control brawl on Wazi Street, Colorado History reported. .
Eventually, about 3,000 white people formed a mob and began terrorizing the city’s Chinese residents. They destroyed Chinese-owned properties and businesses, beat Chinese residents, and eventually killed a Chinese named Look Young.
White mob members caused $53,000 worth of property damage (about $1.5 million today), but they were never responsible for their actions. The Chinese residents of the city were left to pick up the slack and never received compensation.
We have a chance to right the wrong,” Hancock told KUSA-TV. “It’s never too late to apologize for what happened. “
The text on the plaque is full of inaccurate and offensive remarks. It described the incident as a “China riot” rather than an anti-China riot. It also includes the derogatory term “Hop Alley” to explain the location of the incident, referring to the area’s opium dens. It heralded the “protection” of white Chinese immigrants, even including some of their names. Meanwhile, the plaque did not mention Yang, a Chinese who died in the riots.
“While the city cannot erase past injustices to Chinese immigrants, Asian Americans and Pacific Island communities, the city owes them a long overdue apology,” city officials wrote. “Acknowledging mistakes made and failing to correct them is the first step toward recognizing and honoring their contributions and contributes to racial reconciliation.”
