By Lindsay Wang, AsAmNews Intern
A small plaque set into the wall of a decrepit building in Lower Denver commemorates the city’s first recorded race riot, which resulted in the decay and ultimate disappearance of the city’s historic Chinatown.
Last summer Denver began a renaming initiative of public spaces and landmarks named after individuals with connections to racism, colonization and other oppressive institutions. Members of the Re-envisioning Denver’s Historic Chinatown project quickly turned their attention to the plaque.
The plaque, titled “Hop Alley/Chinese Riot of 1880,” describes a Chinatown populated with “500 Chinese” and “17 known opium dens … where one could ‘hit the pipe’ or ‘suck the bamboo.’”