‘Not as devastated as I used to be’: 2 years after Monterey Park killings, recovery inches ahead

What started as a joyous Lunar New Year celebration turned deadly for a small but lively city populated by an Asian-majority.

Instead of opening red envelopes, enjoying good food and sharing hopes for the new year ahead, Monterey Park residents were plunged into terror and unimaginable loss two years ago after a mass shooting at a local ballroom dance studio.

Tuesday, Jan. 21, marks two years since the Monterey Park mass shooting shook the small but vibrant San Gabriel Valley city and took the lives of 11 people at Star Ballroom Dance Studio on Garvey Avenue. The victims were almost all elderly and Asian, many of whom were regulars at the dance studio.

Nearly 65% of the city’s population is Asian, according to the most recent census data.

Despite causing immeasurable trauma to the community, many residents — even those directly affected by the shooting — choose instead to look toward the future and acknowledge that the community has come together even stronger in the years following the shooting.

“I’m not as devastated as I used to be,” Fonda Quan, niece of MyMy Nhan, who was killed in the shooting, said.

Many in the community wish for their cities reputation to be one of community and perseverance, not one of crime, fear, and gun violence. Others are honoring victims while focusing on moving on.

Two years later, the loss of Ming Wei Ma, 72; Yu-Lun Kao, 72; Valentino Marcos Alvero, 68; Wen-Tau Yu, 64; MyMy Nhan, 65; Xiujuan Yu, 57; Muoi Dai Ung, 67; Hongying Jian, 62; Chia Ling Yau, 76; Diana Man Ling Tom, 70; and LiLan Li, 63 is still felt.

On Jan. 21, 2023 72-year-old gunman Huu Can Tran of Hemet, opened fire at the Star Ballroom, killing 11 people and seriously injuring another nine people. Minutes later, he attempted to do the same at Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio in nearby Alhambra. After being pulled over by the police outside a strip mall in Torrance, the gunman killed himself the following day.

Related: Monterey Park mourns victims a year after mass shooting

Hometown hero Brandon Tsay, who stopped the gunman before he could take lives at the second location of Tsay’s family’s dance studio, said the community is venturing back into the dance space.

“For the most part everything just seems more livelier,” Tsay, 20, said. “There has been a lot of engagement in the dance space again. There are a lot of new faces around, and I think that’s due to community members coming together to help support us in our time of need.”

Since the shooting, Tsay said many residents and regulars have debated on if they should come back to dancing, a decision many in the community are still “struggling to overcome.”

In the last two years, community ties have been strengthened, Tsay said.

“I see that members of our dance community began talking more to each other,” he said. “I think people have been really trying to emotionally strengthen each other. That has been a hallmark these two years, trying to figure out how we could help each other, how we could improve our community in this time of need.”

Tsay was a Single Act of Heroism honoree at the 2024 Citizen Honors Awards. In 2023, he was invited to and praised by President Joe Biden at a State of the Union speech and was honored at the Asian Americans Advancing Justice gala.

“The Monterey Park area has always been known for our Asian community, good food and good cultural events,” Tsay said. “After this shooting, a lot of people have stigmatized our city, making it seem like our community is unsafe, something that I would say is true. We’re typically very safe in this area.”

After the shooting, Tsay started a fund through the Asian Pacific Counseling Treatment Centers and Asia Asian Pacific Community Fund to create a workshop and community outreach program, Seniors for Change. Resources geared toward elders and three self-defense classes were offered to seniors in the communities of Walnut, Alhambra and West Covina, all of which have large populations of Asian residents.

Recently, Tsay has taken a step back from outreach work to focus on finishing his education in sociology at UC Irvine. Still, Tsay is regularly involved with his family’s dance studio.

“I think this year, since the anniversary is close to one of our events, we kind of want to make it a remembrance, but we don’t want to have a memorial,” he said. “Right now, a lot of our customers are coming back and recovering from the trauma, and we don’t want to bring back that trauma for them. We want to celebrate their progress and better times that can come out of this incident.”

Similarly, Fonda Quan, who lost her aunt MyMy Nhan to the shooting and created a legacy fund in her honor to support victims, has also taken a break.

Quan had her second child a few months ago and plans to get back to doing community outreach for Asian elders this year.

Despite Quan saying the loss of her aunt doesn’t hurt as much anymore, her presence is deeply missed, especially as Quan was going through pregnancy.

“The first time I was expecting, I pretty much talked to her every day,” Quan said. “Even after giving birth, we would FaceTime multiple times a day, just so she could see him. It’s very different this time around and it’s definitely tough thinking about it.”

Sometimes small things still trigger her grief, but she is also able to remember happy memories and keeps Nhan’s legacy alive through the memories she shares with her oldest child and through the legacy fund.

“I don’t stay sad for a very long time like I did in the past, so it’s definitely different,” she said.

This year, Quan and her family have already honored Nhan’s passing, mostly through religious practices. As Buddhists, she said her family honors her through simple means, such as attending temple service and praying.

“We didn’t want to do anything too close to Lunar New Year,” she said. “We also don’t want to do anything too large because there is a belief (in Buddhism) that if we keep doing these things, the person who passed’s soul may be lingering around because there’s too many unresolved ties so they can’t move on. So we do things a little bit more low key.”

MyMy had a deep compassion for vulnerable elders and despite being in her 60s, never considered herself an elder, Quan said.

“She took care of her mother for over 20 years so many of us encouraged her to take care of herself once my grandmother had passed, to do something for herself,” she said. “This was a super exciting time for her to really spend time on things she loved doing. Unfortunately, that was cut short. The silver lining for us is that at least she was dancing and doing something she loved before passing away.”

Culturally, Quan said elders and taking care of family are also a part of her Vietnamese culture. Part of that stems from the fact that Nhan, like many other Asian residents in the area, came to the U.S. as immigrants.

“It’s almost like it’s our responsibility to care for elders and family members because our elders immigrated here with nothing to their name, no money, not knowing the language or area, all in hopes of the next generation having a better future,” Quan said.

The city of Monterey Park will be hosting a memorial vigil at City Hall on Tuesday at 6 p.m.

A permanent monument to the victims of the shooting is in the works, according to the Jan. 15 city council meeting and agenda, with community input being asked for in a survey that will be open until February. The Chinese Service Center will be conducting the survey and will be available to community members at the vigil.

“Some of the victim, you know, at first they were hesitant (about a memorial),” Nina Loc, a chief behavioral health officer for the Chinese Service Center said during the City Council meeting.

“Now, two years later, they become a strong advocate, because they because traditionally, they see the memorial … as a tombstone,” Loc said. “But now suddenly come to some conclusion, the memorial is actually a very strong public message to advocate for community wellness, to advocate for anti-violence.”