A beleaguered Asian community begins a new year in pain

Lunar New Year should be a time of celebration for Asians around the world. This year it was turned into a tragedy after America’s latest mass shooting took place Saturday night in Monterey Park, a strongly Asian American community in Los Angeles County, California. A gunman shot dozens of people in a ballroom on the eve of the New Year after a day of festivals in the city, killing 11 and injuring others, before later dying by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

His motivation is still being investigated, but police have preliminarily identified the shooter as a member of the local Asian American community. Then Monday night, another tragedy took place in Half Moon Bay, California, where at least seven people were fatally shot.

These latest mass shootings are a stark reminder of the real consequences of America’s gun crisis, and, even though the motive behind the Monterey Park shooting does not so far appear to be racism, the tragedy compounds the trauma Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have faced during these last few years of rising anti-Asian sentiment, spurred by the previous president’s anti-Asian rhetoric during the early days of the pandemic.