1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Lawrence Street Center Terrace Room
Near modern day Coors Field in historic downtown Denver, there once thrived a Chinese American community on what was known as Hop Alley Chinatown, along Wazee Street. Unfortunately, anti-Chinese sentiment by settlers in the late 1800s had increasingly viewed Chinatown with suspicion and mistakenly linked Chinatown to social vices such as gambling, prostitution, and opium dens. It all came to a clash on October 31, 1880, when a saloon brawl erupted. What started out as an altercation quickly escalated into a full-fledged riot, with a drunken white mob attacking and setting fire to every Chinese business in the area. By nightfall, a Chinese man named Look Young was hung while several other Denver Chinese residents were badly beaten. In the end, almost all the Chinese businesses in the area were destroyed and within the span of ten years the community all but disappeared. The impact, however, was not just local. With presidential elections and politicians increasingly focusing on Chinese immigration as a national issue of concern, it affected the outcome of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, when immigration of Chinese was officially banned by the U.S. government and Chinese immigrants in the U.S. became ineligible for citizenship.
The Denver Reparation event will include an official apology by City of Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, for the 1880 destruction of historic Chinatown and the irreversible damages caused which decimated a once thriving community. Denver's Chinatown never fully recovered and was eventually destroyed during redevelopment. Today, only a plaque commemorating the event remains on 20th and Blake Streets, but misrepresents the anti-Chinese riot with a false narrative. The apology is a first step by the City of Denver in acknowledging its role in the historic discrimination and violence against the Chinese community and their descendants. This apology also signifies a great step forward in the city's commitment to re-valuing the contributions of the Chinese immigrant and larger AAPI communities and educating a new generation of Coloradoans about the history of the Chinese immigrant community, by building a more just and inclusive society.
As a champion for DEI efforts and a key supporter of our AAPI community, CU Denver is partnering to champion and support this event with the Colorado Asian Pacific United alliance. Chancellor Marks will be announcing CU Denver's commitment to becoming the nation's first Equity Serving Institution and highlight our vision and key goals in this commitment. She'll touch upon how an already formed committee of faculty, staff, students, and community members have been working diligently to support not just efforts as a striving AANAPISI, but our commitments to showing up for our AAPI students and community at large. Please direct questions to dei@ucdenver.edu and miguel.morris@ucdenver.edu.