Let's Make Monterey Park Proud

I grew up in Monterey Park.

But, I never actually say that. Whenever asked, my quick reply is always “Pasadena” which has all the known references for the Rose Parade, bowl games, and the fancy area where movie stars live. And it’s not untrue -I lived there during my high school days. But I grew up in Monterey Park.

If you didn’t know about Monterey Park before the mass shooting a few weeks ago, I’m sure you’ve heard of it now. It’s a suburb outside of Los Angeles, dominated by Asian immigrants and Asian Americans, where the local economic growth is driven by and sustained with mostly people whose primary language isn’t English. For this reason, scholars have called it an “ethnoburb”.?

It was my home during early elementary through tween years. Where my parents had a thriving business. Where I was free to roam on my bike. Where everyone looked like me, celebrated the same holidays and didn’t question why my mom burned incense right outside our front door. I didn’t feel different because I wasn’t. I could live both as an Asian and American in every way.

Although I’ve lived in the NY area for more than 20 years now, hearing about the Monterey Park tragedy was an eruption of trauma that made me feel like I had been transported back in time. I knew exactly the location of Star Ballroom where the shooting took place - it was around the corner from my dad’s noodle shop. The first press conference was held at Tak Sing Hong - where my mom bought her Eastern herbs. The Langley Senior Living building was the emergency services center - but it was also where I went to a school dance. Every street and location mentioned gave me flashbacks to a life unencumbered.?

I have been struggling to process this grief and trauma, like so many others in our community.

In Bianca Matute-Louie’s op-ed for Elle Magazine, “Monterey Park Has Always Been a Safe Haven for My Family. It Makes the Recent Shooting Even More Devastating”, she talks about her 70 year-old divorced grandmother’s experience in Monterey Park:

She never learned English and never gave a fuck. The ethnoburb empowered her to stay unapologetically herself through the upheavals of divorce and displacement. Our community survived and thrived, not by assimilating into whiteness and integrating into white institutions, but by transforming old strip malls into prosperous Asian marketplaces and creating an environment that unapologetically served ourselves.

My parents emigrated to the US in 1970. After working odd jobs, my parents saved enough money to open a 4-table restaurant in Los Angeles’ Chinatown in 1977, a few years after I was born. They both worked there, along with my older sister and brother on weekends. Despite not having any experience running a business, after several years, they were successful enough to open their first restaurant in Monterey Park.

The move to Monterey Park felt like a big deal because it was. There was excitement amongst us thinking (or was it hoping?) that Asians were becoming successful enough to expand beyond Chinatown. My parents bought a new home, built their first restaurant from the ground up, and bought a Mercedes. It was just the start of a new, exciting life in Monterey Park.

In the next 25 years that followed, my parents went on to open more restaurants, built a community of long-time friends for celebrations and mah-jong, and went on to see their kids go to well-known colleges and create successful lives of their own.

A few years ago, I was doing some research in part to share my family experience for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and discovered that my parents’ noodle shop had been reviewed by the late Jonathan Gold for the Los Angeles Times - one of the first Asian restaurants in the newspaper’s history. We were SO shocked to never know this amazing news and excitedly asked my dad about it. He had no idea, either. His response?

“Why would I care? I didn’t do it for the newspaper. I worked so hard so you all could have a better life.”

Despite their long list of accomplishments, my parents hardly spoke any English. They navigated the complex world of banks and business and home ownership, paid taxes, became US Citizens and ultimately created a fulfilling life that unapologetically served themselves in their own community.

If someone had slipped them a piece of paper that said “I achieved the American Dream”, they would have proudly taken a photo with it. And the close-knit, Asian-centric Monterey Park gave them that opportunity.

I have come to realize that Monterey Park means so much more to me than just the place where I grew up. It is the proof that one can be an unapologetically ambitious Chinese person; that there is no need to define success on anyone’s terms but your own.?

Let this be the fortitude we need to heal and start our next chapter. We need to make Monterey Park proud.