Forget apple pie — mass shootings are the new ‘all-American’ distinction

This weekend, I watched the breaking news reports from Southern California with a mixture of shock, disbelief and anger. On Saturday night, what had been a gathering to celebrate the Lunar New Year in a Los Angeles suburb became the scene of a massacre. By Sunday, President Biden had issued a statement, noting: “While there is still much we don’t know about the motive in this senseless attack, we do know that many families are grieving tonight, or praying that their loved one will recover from their wounds.” 

I am from Monterey Park, Calif. I am struggling to process a reality that has become familiar to many Americans: The horror of a mass shooting has come to my hometown. And this diverse, vibrant community will never be the same. 

I know the area surrounding the Star Ballroom Dance Studio — the site of the attacks — very well. The church where I made my First Communion is down the street, and the public park where I learned to swim is around the corner.  

Until Saturday night, people outside of Southern California had likely never heard of Monterey Park. It is the birthplace of designer Bob Mackie and home to some of the best Chinese restaurants in the country. Once a sleepy white middle-class suburb, the city was transformed in the 1980s by an influx of Asian immigrants. A 1994 book about my hometown was titled “The First Suburban Chinatown,” because it was the first city on the U.S. mainland to have a majority Asian American population.   

Monterey Park is now 65 percent Asian, according to the U.S. Census. Given these demographics, it is understandable that, for many observers, the massacre initially seemed to be an anti-Asian hate crime. Acts of violence against the Asian American community have been on the rise since the pandemic, and have been reported from Atlanta to New York City. Yet authorities have identified the shooter as an elderly Asian male, and his motives are unclear. The gunman was pronounced dead on Sunday by a self-inflicted wound, after a standoff with police in Torrance, Calif.  

The shooter being of Asian heritage does not lessen the pain and suffering of the families and friends of the those killed and wounded that evening. Anti-Asian hate crimes spiked 331 percent in 2021, and just the fact that anti-Asian violence was at first assumed by many to be the driving force behind the killings is a sad reflection of our society.  

In a tragic irony, this was Monterey Park’s first celebration of the Lunar New Year Festival since before the pandemic, and this year also marked the first time that California designated the Lunar New Year as a state holiday. But instead of coming together and celebrating a time that is traditionally joyous for people of Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese heritage, many city residents are left pondering the aftermath of a horrific act. 

Monterey Park is the latest episode in our country’s current epidemic of gun violence. The Gun Violence Archive reports that there have been 36 mass shootings in the U.S. in 2023 so far; another mass shooting took place in Tulare, Calif., only a week ago.

Gallup polling shows that 57 percent of Americans favor stricter laws about who can access firearms, and President Biden signed a gun safety measure in June. However, it was the first gun safety legislation passed in decades, and Congress is unlikely to take up further reforms.

When I was growing up, Monterey Park was designated as an “All America City” by the National Civic League. This is a prestigious award that recognizes communities with notable civic engagement and innovation. The “All America City” tagline is still featured on signs around town, a source of local pride that our little town could be as renowned and successful as any other.  

Now I realize that Monterey Park is all American in another way.

Gun violence has taken 11 people away from us and cast a long shadow over my hometown’s future Lunar New Year celebrations. It has traumatized Asian and immigrant communities already on edge. Soon the news cycle will move on, the national spotlight will fade, and Saturday night’s events will probably soon be replaced in the headlines by news of another shooting.

Monterey Park, Calif., will join a list of cities associated with gun violence, places like Uvalde, Texas, Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo. Sadly, what could be more “All America” than that?

Raul Reyes is an immigration attorney and member of the USA Today Board of Contributors. A graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Law School, he is also a contributor to NBCNews.com and CNN Opinion. You can follow him on Twitter at @RaulAReyes, Instagram: raulareyes1.