With President Joe Biden set to visit Monterey Park on Tuesday, he is poised to encounter a city immersed in a longterm effort to heal.
Like the growing list of American cities before it, the Jan. 21 mass shooting — which occurred just as the city was beginning its Lunar New Year celebration — not only destroyed lives and devastated families, it shattered a sense of peace and security in a suburb long known for such traits.
In the nearly two months since the tragedy at Star Ballroom Dance Studio, residents, business owners, families and leaders have slowly been picking up the pieces.
Gone is the elaborate temporary memorial for the 11 victims at the site, where crowds of mourners came for days and days. But in its place is resolve to move forward, even as the collective memory of what happened remains fresh.
Against this backdrop, Biden on Tuesday plans to discuss his efforts to reduce gun violence in America, a discussion that will likely echo his State of the Union speech in February, when – inspired by the Monterey Park shooting and the massacre two days later in Half Moon Bay that left seven dead — he renewed a call for a federal assault weapons ban.
Many welcome the visit, but their optimism is tempered by a long recovery road ahead, one where resources for mental health counseling and support for businesses hit hard by the loss of customer traffic will be at a premium. And there’s a tinge of skepticism about whether anything can be done politically to reduce gun violence when little has happened at the federal level after other mass shootings.
In one sense, life is slowly getting back to some version of normal, nearly two months after the massacre.
Just blocks away from the studio, Marianne Li and friends were dancing again recently at Langley Senior Center in Monterey Park, where the International Folk Dancing Club was having its regular class.
In the days right after the shooting, the senior center — a vibrant recreational community space — morphed into a crisis center, full of family, friends and counselors faced with a nightmare of grief and despair.
In a city trying to move on, so is the senior center.
“In the first few weeks I was really scared, even when I drove close by the studio, I was a bit scared,” said Li, who said she knew victims of the shooting.
The instructor of the class, Cindy Fang, is a professor of finance at Cal State L.A. but teaches dance for fun and her love for dance.
Fang said that the first few days after the shooting some students were afraid to attend class. Some of her students, like Li, knew who the dancers from Star Ballroom were, she said.
Gradually, her students have returned to the center to perform dances from all over the world, including Japan, China and Israel.
Li, like many here, said a presidential visit — much like the vice president’s in the week after the tragedy — is part of the recovery, part of the healing. It will mean a lot to the community, she said.
Fellow dancer Kathy Shiao echoed Li, adding a dose of hope that the visit will bring attention to gun violence in the nation.
“I think that President Biden will use this to emphasize his agenda, which is gun control,” said Shiao, “which is good, especially during that time when there were two instances that happened so close together.”
But there’s an awareness among many in the city that healing will not be overnight. As City Councilman Thomas Wong said, this is a process that could take months, if not years.
Wong said a major task is to rebuild a sense of security.
Leaders point to efforts already underway.
It wasn’t long after the shooting that the City Council and city officials formally began taking steps to steer city policy and action toward ensuring the wellbeing of victims and impacted family members of victims.
They adopted a resolution to extend a local emergency resulting from the mass murder, and authorized the city manager to execute an executive order directing the California Community Foundation to administer the distribution of donation funds, which have from all over the world.
Wong said that the city will continue to have mental health support and healing for residents at the Monterey Park Bruggemeyer Library, 318 S. Ramona Ave. Multilingual caseworkers and counselors from the Chinatown Service Center are at the library on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2-6 p.m. to help residents.
The City Council is also working to support an array of gun reform bills — including a federal ban on assault weapons — at the local, state and federal levels, and will continue to do so, said Wong.
While the issue of gun reform legislation has been a hot topic for years, given the volume of mass shootings and violence in the United States, the Jan. 21 mass shooting catalyzed a vigorous push among local leaders to reform the law.
The gunman, Huu Can Tran, 72, used a semi-automatic pistol in his rampage, before killing himself in a strip mall parking lot near Sepulveda and Hawthorne boulevards in Torrance.
The gun — a Cobray M-11/9, a variation of a Mac 10 pistol — was purchased in Monterey Park but it was not registered in California, authorities said. Investigators found hundreds of rounds of ammunition and items authorities believed were being used to make homemade firearm suppressors, at the gunman’s home, officials said. Forty-two shell casings and a large-capacity magazine were recovered at the scene.
While supporting broader gun control laws, during a March 1 meeting, the council directed the city manager and city attorney to amend the Monterey Park Municipal Code to reflect L.A. County’s zoning regulations outlining a 1,000-foot buffer zone between firearms dealers and sensitive areas and between firearms dealers and other firearms dealers.
Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena, and Isabella Casillas Guzman, head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, visited Garvey Avenue late last month.
Chu, whose congressional district includes Monterey Park, highlighted federal efforts made in the past two years to support small business. Guzman heard directly from small businesses on specific needs and challenges in the wake of the pandemic and the shooting.
Officials have also noted the toll the shooting took on first responders. In January, City Manager Ron Bow publicly apologized to the firefighters “for not intervening sooner” to acknowledge their role and the emotional pain they were dealing with after responding to the scene.
For now, a second temporary memorial in front of the the City of Monterey Park Civic Center has scaled down in size, with some photos of the victims and flowers still standing. But Wong said very early talks about a permanent memorial for the victims are in the works.
Wong said Biden’s visit itself is a big notch on that road to recovery, calling it a “major signal that the administration is committed to help heal in a long term way.”
But he hoped it foreshadows a commitment that goes beyond just gun control.
“We are looking forward to the president’s visit,” he said. “It will help in recovery and with other members of the cabinet that are to come, they will be listening to the community and learn what the needs of the city are and resources also needed.”
The goal, he said, is to make change so “that this doesn’t happen again.”
As local leaders noted, gun violence is not good for businesses that surround that violence, a fact that that Monterey Park City Council members and staffers were keenly aware of as they joined Chu and Casillas Guzman’s listening tour on Garvey.
The festive Lunar New Year was a time when many businesses would have seen more customer traffic. Sales still have not been the same, though business say customer traffic is slowly getting back to what it was before.
Nancy Li, an employee at L.Y. Studio, a clothing store across the street from the dance studio, said that before the shooting, she would see significant traffic at the store, even at night.
Now, Li and her fellow coworkers feel unsafe, because of the violence. Li said that she will continue to ask the city for more action and response from city officials.
The angst for normalcy and recovery in the business community is illustrated one city over, in Alhambra.
It was the Lai Lai Ballroom and Dance studio, where Brandon Tsay, whose family owns the business, disarmed and kicked out the gunman, who had gone there after the rampage at Star Ballroom. Tsay has been praised by local leaders, from Monterey Park Mayor Jose Sanchez to Biden himself for his actions, which likely prevented another massacre.
His presence at Biden’s State of the Union speech in February was foundational to Biden’s call in that speech for a renewed federal ban on assault weapons.
But in the aftermath, business at Lai Lai has also not been the same.
The studio resumed morning private lessons and their afternoon Tea Dance within just two weeks of the shooting, in part an act of solidarity with the dance community they cultivated over 30 years, but also as a financial imperative.
Since reopening the ballroom, which at its height would pack in up to 100 seniors from across the San Gabriel Valley, has seen about half of its regular customers return.
Last month the studio restarted its Night Dance Party, the event the gunman walked into before reaching Brandon, hoping it would attract more dancers.
But Brenda Tsay, who helps run the studio with her father and brother, said business has remained stagnant and they’re now reducing some prices to draw people in. The family is now hoping their April 15 showcase will help turn things around.
“That’s the big one,” Tsay said. “So we’ll see how that goes but we’re still pushing.”
That push among many business owners is common in an area where some owners said they were concerned that Biden’s visit in itself would affect their business, especially if streets are closed and access restricted.
Many just want to see more action, and not only talk.
May Ng, a clerk at T. S. Emporium – a chain store that sells traditional Chinese medicine and kitchen supplies – said that she has become numb to seeing the many mass shootings in the media, like the one at the dance studio, which is on the same lot as the store.
Ng said that even though she has heard talk about gun legislation locally, she wants to see it in action.
“(Biden) seems to care about the community but (the visit) might not change gun control issues,” she said.
As the community continues to heal – Emily Wu Truong, a grassroots mental health advocate in the San Gabriel Valley, also wants to see more action.
Truong said that many in the Asian community have a difficult time dealing with traumatic instances such as the shooting. Providing safe space is important, she said.
“When you heal yourself, you help to heal your community,” she said. “It’s nice that the politicians are coming to acknowledge our grief, but acknowledging it doesn’t provide us with everyday solutions.”
Staff writer John Orona contributed to this story.
