11/16/2023 0 Comments Hop alley sign history denver![]() ![]() This was largely the work of yellow journalism, an irresponsible press that published sensationalized articles to feed its readers’ apparently insatiable appetites for information about the Chinese community. It was rumored that tunnels and secret rooms accessible only by trapdoors connected the buildings.ĭenver’s white population largely viewed Hop Alley with suspicion and a certain degree of fascination. These entrances were probably situated in back for greater security and privacy. Its name was suggestive: “Hop” referred to the opium that had become synonymous with the Chinese, and “Alley” referred to the locations of building entrances where Chinese people lived. Hop Alley gave birth to a number of urban legends about itself and the Chinese who lived there. Until the very end, the Chinese who lived there were never able to break out of the various boundaries that confined them. The Chinese were considered “strangers in the land” who were incapable of assimilating into American society. ![]() Both Chinatowns were perceived as alien places, inhabited by people whose racial and cultural characteristics set them apart from the dominant society. on the side of a building on Twentieth Street between Market and Blake Streets. Remarkably, today there is no evidence that Chinatown ever existed in what is now the Lower Downtown Historic District, apart from a small plaque placed by LoDo District, Inc. By 1940, most lived on the periphery of lower downtown, in the area of Market and Twentieth Streets, near the site of today’s Coors Field. From Wazee Street, Chinese residents spread to five areas of lower downtown. Some scholars claim that the word Wazee itself is Chinese, meaning “Street of the Chinese” in Cantonese. The neighborhood was established around 1870 on Wazee Street between Fifteenth and Seventeenth Streets, next to the old red-light district and near other working-class ethnic enclaves. It was there that they could eke out an existence and maintain their cultural identity, replicating the traditional Chinese social structure and modifying it when necessary to fit the state’s frontier society and economy.īoth Chinatowns occupied the same physical space. It was a place they could call their own, a community that gave them moral support and physical security. Second and nearly forgotten was the ethnic ghetto where Chinese immigrants found refuge in the hostile milieu that was Colorado. To the extent that Denver’s Chinatown is remembered at all, it is likely to be as Hop Alley. That Chinatown was more of an idea than anything else-one that allowed people to play out their fantasies about the Chinese. First and foremost was “Hop Alley,” a mysterious and vice-ridden place that captured people’s imaginations. In memory, however, there were always two. Historically speaking, there was only one Denver Chinatown. Today, Denver’s Chinatown remains mostly a memory. But the history of Chinatown demonstrates that the city’s Chinese residents did more than simply survive in the face of enormous prejudice and disadvantage-they built a thriving community that played an integral role in the city’s economy and culture. The neighborhood endured decades of racially motivated violence and other forms of abuse, including the violent Anti-Chinese Riot of 1880. ![]() For economic reasons, as well as to protect themselves from an Anglo-American culture that mostly viewed them with contempt, Denver’s Chinese residents established an ethnic enclave in the city around 1870. ![]()
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