Old Chinatown, or original Chinatown, is a retronym that refers to the location of a former Chinese-American ethnic enclave enforced by legal segregation that existed near downtown Los Angeles, California in the United States from the 1860s until the 1930s. Old Chinatown included the former Calle de los Negros and extended east across Alameda Street to Apablasa, Benjamin, Jeannete, Juan, Marchessault, and Macy Streets. This Chinatown was at its commercial and communal peak between 1890 and 1910.

The Los Angeles Chinese massacre of 1871 was a racial massacre targeting Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles, California, United States that occurred on October 24, 1871. Approximately 500 white and Latino Americans attacked, harassed, robbed, and murdered the ethnic Chinese residents in what is today referred to as the old Chinatown neighborhood. The massacre took place on Calle de los Negros, also referred to as "Negro Alley". The mob gathered after hearing that a policeman and a rancher had been killed as a result of a conflict between rival tongs, the Nin Yung, and Hong Chow. As news of their death spread across the city, fueling rumors that the Chinese community "were killing whites wholesale", more men gathered around the boundaries of Negro Alley. A few 21st-century sources have described this as the largest mass lynching in American history.