Melissa Harris-Perry: It's The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. The Star Dance Studio in Monterey Park, California is where older Chinese immigrants learned to cha-cha and line dance, but on Saturday night, the dancing and the Lunar New Year celebrations came to an abrupt and violent halt.

Speaker 2: A time of a cultural celebration, yet another community has been torn apart by senseless gun violence. All of us in this room and in our country understand this violence must stop. President Biden and I and our administration will continue to provide full support to the local authorities as we learn more.

Melissa Harris-Perry: A 72-year-old gunman, who was known in the dance studio, had come in and shot and killed 11 people. He wounded 9 others, and he wounded a community that is special to many. Angie Chung is professor of Sociology at the University of Albany, and she's currently working on a book about Koreatown and Monterey Park. Angie, thanks for joining us.

Angie Chung: Pleasure to be here. Thank you, Melissa.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Can you start just by telling me a bit about the cultural significance of Monterey Park?

Angie Chung: Yes. Monterey Park has the distinction of being one of the first Chinese-American suburbs in the Chinese community of the San Gabriel Valley. In the old days, Chinatown used to be centered closer to the downtown and was primarily comprised of working-class Chinese. Monterey Park, which now has about 61,000 residents and 65% who are Asian-American, has really grown over time and become a mixed-class suburban core for wealthier Chinese satellite suburbs out in the outskirts of that area.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Does that also mean that it's a place of political power, of economic power, in addition to being one of cultural significance?

Angie Chung: Without a doubt. Actually, it wasn't always a Chinese-American community. In the old days, around the 1970s, you had more of a small middle-class, primarily white, bedroom suburban community that lived there. Over time, as the Chinese and also Taiwanese population grew, you started to see many to run for political office. Actually currently, if you look at the city council, the majority of candidates or people who are on the committee are basically Chinese in origin. They've had quite a significant growth over time since the 1980s and have also started to express their political voice through that community.

Melissa Harris-Perry: As you were describing where it is in California, help folks who may not know the Southern California landscape. Talk to me about the nature of the community. Is it primarily first and second-generation folks or longer-term?

Angie Chung: I think one of the interesting aspects about Monterey Park is that in the old days when immigrants first came to the country, they would start out in the typical urban China towns such as the one like I mentioned in the downtown area. Over time, as China grew and US-China relations started to expand, a lot of foreign-born Chinese would come with investments and class and resources, which they would actually put into suburban communities. Many of them did not have to start out in working-class Chinatowns, and instead, they would come straight to middle-class areas that hadn't experienced this type of immigrant growth.

I think Monterey Park is very important in the sense-- like I said, it was one of the first Chinese-American suburbs, but over time, you've seen that they've started to spread out into eastern parts of the San Gabriel Valley in places like Arcadia, Pasadena, Walnut, San Marino, there's a whole bunch of regions in that area that have experienced huge growth. In fact, I think Monterey Park, if you look at the median household income, it's declined over time and still is a middle-class suburb, but the wealthier Chinese immigrants tend to go off into other areas on the outskirts of that region.

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Melissa Harris-Perry: More on the history and significance of Monterey Park right after this. I'm back with Angie Chung of the university at Albany, and we're talking about the community of Monterey Park, California. I've been so moved by what we've been learning about the dance studio. That it was a place where folks in their 50s, 60s, and 70s were gathering and dancing. I think you very first hear on the news something like a dance hall, you may have one vision in your head, but talk to me about what this means to have this thriving, suburban, senior community.

Angie Chung: Yes, it's such a heartbreak just to hear what's been happening. I think it's been a very tough few years for the Asian-American community in general, but also particularly for the Chinese population because of COVID and the anti-Asian hate crimes that have skyrocketed over time. If you actually speak to many of the residents today, they'll basically talk about the fear and anxiety that has been growing over time, and although this particular crime they're still investigating what led to the shooting, I think that it's just a capstone of all the things that the Chinese community has experienced over the past few years.

The Chinese community itself is quite diverse. There is a large percentage of immigrants and also American-born Chinese, and a lot of them, they come here, they want to live the American dream. There's been a lot of tensions over the years that have made it very difficult to do so.

Melissa Harris-Perry: That is perhaps the understatement of the 20th and 21st century. I'm thinking here of the Chinese exclusion acts going quite far back. I guess I'm also wondering about an agony that I guess I feel a certain familiarity with as an African-American who's lived in predominantly Black communities in the south, often making a choice to live in communities that are culturally nurturing, but that also are sometimes marked by this kind of violence. This does not appear to have been a hate crime in the way that we think of hate crimes being someone from outside the cultural or racial or ethnic community. I guess I'm wondering in part about how that kind of wound feels or if we're beginning to [unintelligible 00:06:33] reflections on that out in Monterey Park.

Angie Chung: Right. I think this is certainly something that America in general has been grappling with. I just came back actually from South Korea where there are no legal guns. There's a lot of laws against actually possessing it. I can say that the sense of anxiety and fear that grew as I came back to my country, to know that they're out there, that you could be somewhere public in schools or public spaces anywhere and see this type of violence is just really frightening.

In the stereotypical view of suburbs, we used to think of these places as safe spaces, but that is no longer the case. I think that, particularly, you mentioned minority communities, they deal with this in many ways. I think that this is something that America really needs to grapple with in the coming years.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I wonder, on the one hand, the pain of this happening at the Lunar New Year as the celebrations are underway, but I'm also thinking, I just had a very dear friend who lost her beloved spouse right at the Christmas holidays. Talk to me about, on the one hand, this will forever mean that those holidays are marked by this loss, but also that there's something about the routine of the holiday, the joy of the holiday that also provides some healing even in the grief. I guess I'm just wondering about that relative to Lunar New Year celebrations, and not only this shooting but another one on Monday.

Angie Chung: Yes. The Lunar New Year is like what a New Year is supposed to be, it's the time of starting over, starting fresh, reestablishing your friendships and your family relationships. We know in the traditional Chinese culture that family is particularly important. Wouldn't surprise me if a lot of people had come home to Monterey Park to see their family members, and for it to be shattered like this in violence and loss and chaos is just quite upsetting, I think, for many people.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Angie Chung is professor of Sociology at the University at Albany and author of Saving Face: The Emotional Costs of the Asian Immigrant Family Myth. She's also currently working on a book that includes Monterey Park. Angie, thanks for taking time with us.

Angie Chung: Thank you.

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