One day after demands for an explanation from Chinese American leaders, Jamie Giellis, who is in a runoff for mayor of Denver, explained her tweet asking “why so many cities feel its necessary to have a Chinatown.”
The tweet from 2009 which surfaced this week has since been deleted.
“I was asking if it’s right for a city government to promote a Chinatown district, using its original name and culture, for the city’s commercial or economic purposes while ignoring displacement of the people themselves,” she wrote , according to 9 News. She said her tweet was inspired by her concern about gentrification.
More than 30 community leaders expressed their concerns about the tweet in a letter to Giellis.
The Denver Post reported the letter from the Asian American groups called the tweet ” “particularly disturbing in light of the tragic event that happened 149 years ago in the core of our downtown and the racial divisiveness unfolding in our country today.” A race riot then left one man dead and practically destroyed Denver’s Chinatown.
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“I recognize that my 2009 social media post about Chinatowns as a tweet in isolation was insensitive, and I apologize,” Giellis said, according to Colorado Politics. “I shouldn’t have tweeted it without the full context. In its brevity, it was poorly worded.”
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