Start Date:1/20/2022
Start Time:10:00 AM MST
Duration:60 minutes
Abstract:
This virtual NeighborWalks presentation bring to light the once-thriving Chinatown that was in Denver’s Lower Downtown district, which suffered an anti-Chinese race riot on October 31, 1880 but was rebuilt and continued on into the 20th century.
Few people in Denver know that a Chinatown once flourished in LoDo, just blocks from Union Station and what is now Coors Field. Chinese laborers began arriving in 1870, after the completion of the Trans-Continental Railroad. Workers took the train south from Wyoming and disembarked at Union Station, walked a few blocks and established a bustling business district.
Unfortunately, an anti-Chinese race riot on October 31, 1880 led to thousands of whites rampaging through Chinatown, destroying businesses and beating one Chinese man to death and hanging him from a lamp post at 19th and Arapahoe. The resilient Chinese returned and rebuilt the district despite not receiving a single dollar in reparations. The riot led to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, banning immigration from China. Remnants of the downtown community continued even into the 1950s, but today’s Chinese are scattered throughout the metro area.
This AARP CO NeighborWalk will conclude with the current effort by Colorado Asian Pacific United, or CAPU, to re-envision the historic Chinatown as part of Denver’s vibrant and multicultural history, and to remove and replace the one vestige of the district: a plaque on a LoDo building that inaccurately tells the story of the Chinatown.
The NeighborWalk will be led by Gil Asakawa, a journalist, community activist, author of “Being Japanese American” (Stone Bridge Press, 2014) and “Tabemasho! Let’s Eat! The History of Japanese Food in America (Stone Bridge Press, 2022). He is a founding board member of CAPU.
NOTE ACCESSIBLE UNTIL FEB 20, 2022
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Speakers
Gil Askawa Gil Asakawa is a journalist, editor, author and blogger who covers Japan, Japanese American and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) culture and social justice issues in blogs, articles and social media. He is a nationally-known speaker, panelist and expert on Japanese American and Asian American history and identity. He’s the author of “Being Japanese American” (Stone Bridge Press), a history of Japanese in America originally published in 2004 and revised in 2014, and co-author of “The Toy Book” (Alfred Knopf, 1991), a history of the toys of the Baby Boom generation. He is currently working on “Tabemasho! Let’s Eat!” (Stone Bridge Press), a history of Japanese food in America which will be published in 2022.
His journalism experience runs the gamut from being the music editor and investigative reporter for Denver's alternative weekly newspaper Westword and entertainment editor for the Colorado Springs Gazette daily newspaper to managing the DenverPost.com website. He has written for many local Denver and Colorado publications, both in print and online. His Asian American experience includes a blog, at www.Nikkeiview.com, and posts on social media outlets including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
He has written for national publications including Rolling Stone magazine, and he has been published in Newsweek Japan. From 2010 to 2020, Asakawa was a student newspaper adviser in the journalism department of the University of Colorado Boulder. He was also a consultant for AARP’s Asian American marketing team, managing its social media and writing articles about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) for AARP. In 2019 he served as a consultant with the Colorado Media Project focusing on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the organization’s statewide projects.
Asakawa was appointed in 2014 by Mayor Michael B. Hancock to Denver’s Asian American Pacific Islander Commission, and served until December 2020. He served twice as president of the Mile High chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League. He is also a member of the Japan America Society of Colorado, Nikkeijin Kai of Colorado, Asian American Journalists Association, and served on the board of the Emily Griffith Foundation. He is Chair of the Denver-Takayama Sister City Committee, and a member of the Board of Trustees for Historic Denver.
He is also a founding member of Colorado Asian Pacific United (CAPU), an organization formed to commemorate Denver’s early Chinatown district in Lower Downtown Denver. He has been interviewed by the media and has spoken about the history of the Japanese community and Denver’s Chinatown to History Colorado, University of Denver and library districts across the U.S.
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The forgotten history of the thriving Chinatown district in Lower Downtown Denver - AARP CO Webinar
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