lunar new year grief
illuminations of the monterey park incident + community healing resources ❤️🩹
Content Warning: I’m writing about the recent violent incident in Monterey Park. I am using gentle language, but details of the event are referenced for context.
San Gabriel Valley (which I and many others lovingly call “the 626”) is quite literally the birthplace of Asian American culture, and home to many Asian Americans in my beloved community.
On Lunar New Year, a gunman took the lives of 11 people at a dance hall in Monterey Park, a peaceful suburb of the 626 comprised primarily of elderly Chinese people. The dance hall is a precious community center, and was hosting Lunar New Year celebrations when the attack happened.
Upon hearing the news, my partner & I paused our own Lunar New Year preparations to text our friends & family, checking in to see if they were okay. I was horrified to learn that one of my uncles lives in Monterey Park, and my dad & his siblings had gathered there to celebrate the holiday. Luckily, everyone I know is safe—a bittersweet discovery, as the edges between my family and someone else’s family become increasingly blurred the more I live this life.
I am holding the multiplicities of messaging my dad on Lunar New Year—the most auspicious & joyful celebration in our culture—to make sure he was alive. Processing, mourning, crying, celebrating, laughing, loving, receiving love, all in a day’s time. To be Asian American is to hold these multiplicities—grief & joy; discrimination & success; death & a reverence for life—in a dizzying balancing act. May we find space to hold it all with patience and tender loving care.
The morning after, the suspect was found dead by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was a 72-year old Asian man who had recently gone to the police, saying his family was trying to harm him (Source: LA Times). He had been living in a mobile park home for older people.
The suspect was one of our elders in pain. From what we know, they may have been having trouble with their family, or was at least experiencing strife situated in our own community. This illuminates a core truth: non-performative community care & mutual aid, mental health advocacy, gun reform, infrastructure for low-income people, wealth redistribution, safety & liberation—are not separate issues. They are manifestations of a single problem: a society that places status & wealth above human lives.
I have no reason to believe that the government will provide us with the protections we need in our lifetime. We must find it independently: in our everyday actions, in constant questioning of the systems that keep us unsafe, in speaking up + providing care when harm is happening, in forgiveness & reparations, in the love we give to ourselves, our families, and our communities.
To my beloved, sacred Asian American family: Remember that there is no “right” way to process, feel, or respond to this tragedy. May we keep each other safe, protect our joy at all costs, and remind ourselves why this life is so worth living.
❤️🩹 Community Healing Resources ❤️🩹
Verified GoFundMe for the Monterey Park Lunar New Year Victims
AAPI Grief Circle hosted by Hate Is A Virus, on January 26th at 6pm PT
Virtual Community Healing Spaces hosted by Asian Mental Health Project, all throughout this week (w/o January 23rd)