What Mourning Looks Like in Monterey Park

Bound by a Culture of Welcoming ‘Immigrants and Lost Ones,’ a Community Comes Together in the Wake of a Mass Shooting

An altar to the victims of the Monterey Park shooting. Flowers, candles, small pictuers, and notes fill the table. Above the altar are three larger photos of three different victims, framed with flowers.

On a radiantly sunny afternoon in late January, I visited the parking lot of Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park. It had been less than a week since a gunman killed 11 people there ranging in age from 57 to 76, many of them regulars who were there to celebrate Lunar New Year Eve. Eleven altars featuring portraits of the victims had been placed against the brick wall of the studio, along with traditional funeral wreaths draped in white sashes (“Exact Tax Inc.,” “Boys and Girls Club of the …

by Wendy Cheng | March 2, 2023

The Chinese-Born Doctor Who Brought Tofu to America

Yamei Kin Was a Scientific Prodigy Who Promoted the Chinese Art of Living to U.S. Audiences

by Matthew Roth | August 13, 2018

On a hot summer day in 1918, syndicated reporter Sarah McDougal paid a visit to an unusual laboratory of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Bureau of Chemistry, a predecessor to …

A Cultural Touchstone Fends off the End of an Era

In the Age of the Angry Asian Man Blog, 113-year-old Japanese-American Newspaper 'The Rafu Shimpo' Reaches Out to New Readers

By Gwen Muranaka | May 13, 2016

Long before I was the English editor of The Rafu Shimpo—the newspaper that covers Japanese-American communities up and down the Pacific Coast and other Japanese-American hubs like Denver, New York, …

Why Asian-Americans Shouldn’t Chuck Affirmative Action Out the Window

Some Southeast Asians Can Use a Boost in Education, But the Real Need Is to Break Through the ‘Bamboo Ceiling.’

by Jennifer Lee | June 9, 2015

A group of Asian-American organizations recently held a splashy press conference in Washington to announce that they will file a federal complaint against Harvard University. Their allegation: Harvard and other …

The Call of Home at the End of Life

My Quanzhou-Born Father Needed to Say Goodbye to China Before We Said Goodbye to Him

by June Shih | December 16, 2014

“In his condition, you’ll have to take him home business class,” the doctor in Beijing had said. “Bring sleeping pills.”

As we boarded our flight back home to Washington, D.C., …

Thanksgiving, the Infinity Mirror

During This Get-Together of Four Generations Speaking Three Languages, We All Take Turns Playing Caretaker and Taken-Care-Of

by Kim Luu | November 24, 2014

As Thanksgiving approaches, I think back to the first Thanksgiving I spent with my infant daughter three years ago, which was also the last one I spent with my grandmother. …

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