For the past 50 years, Shally Ung hadn’t spent much time thinking about the carnage she’d seen growing up in her native Cambodia. But those scenes of bombs raining down on Phnom Penh came roaring back on Lunar New Year last year, when a gunman opened fire at Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park and killed 11 people. Ung’s dance partner for nearly two decades, Andy Kao, was shot in the chest and died beside her under a table.
The 21 January 2023 attack was the worst mass shooting in Los Angeles county history, hitting the heart of Monterey Park’s large Asian immigrant community. Flashbacks of the horror, as well as her childhood memories, haunted her for months, said Ung, 59.
