One Saturday evening, as she was watching TV at home, Barbara heard what she assumed were fireworks going off for a Lunar New Year festival. It was not until the next morning that she learned that the popping had not been celebratory fireworks, but gunshots at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, California, the site of a mass shooting last month that left 11 people dead and nine injured. It was the studio her own parents attended weekly for the past 30 years.
After fleeing the Vietnam War and resettling as refugees in the United States, Barbara’s parents, both in their 70s, found joy, comfort and community at Star Dance. Barbara had been to the studio countless times to watch their performances and, occasionally, pick them up late at night when they had “partied too hard”. The only reason they weren’t there that night was because they were away on a cruise.
