When I was in Denver for the Association for Asian American Studies conference in 2022 I went on a tour of Denver’s Chinatown. I didn’t think there was a Chinatown in Denver so I was curious to see where the tour would take us, us being myself and two other conference participants. We met in front of Union Station, one of Denver's iconic historic landmarks. This area today is called LoDo (Lower Downtown) and known for its trendy shopping and dining scene. We learned that this was also where Chinese communities lived, faced hate crimes and were eventually driven out. There were multiple communities of Chinese people in Denver whose history was erased. Our guide was Dennis Martinez, founder of We Watta Row. He dove deep into archival material and made close architectural observations of old buildings in the neighborhood. He shared his findings on his tour. That there were thriving Chinese communities, that they were forced out of their homes and businesses. I learned that Martinez had a personal obsession with finding out what happened to the Chinese people, that he collaborated with AAPI community leaders, that the day I took Martinez’s tour the city of Denver formally apologized to early Chinese immigrants and their descendants, that there is a plan to revive Chinatown in Denver.
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