Within the aftermath of the mass taking pictures that killed 11 folks on January 21 at Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, California, Kathy Yep displays on the that means of security and therapeutic in her neighborhood.

Photograph through Unsplash.

Because the information of the mass taking pictures in Monterey Park unfolded, my coronary heart sank as I acknowledged the constructing behind the yellow crime scene tape. I’m a longtime resident of Monterey Park and a university professor. My college students and I tutored individuals of the the grownup literacy program on the public library not too removed from the positioning of the mass taking pictures for over ten years. Once I noticed the grainy photograph of the shooter, Huu Can Tran, I felt like he could possibly be an uncle in my household — or maybe somebody I’d met for tutoring on the native library. My thoughts raced as I started to consider these in my neighborhood. I struggled to observe returning to my breath and the current second.

How will we acknowledge the struggling on this second and return to our breath?

On the library, immigrants and refugees labored with me and my college students to arrange for the U.S. naturalization examination and observe conversational English. An older immigrant man, “Julian,” at all times confirmed up early to our class. After a lot time collectively, he shared the cumulative grief of his expertise being imprisoned in a “re-education camp” after the U.S. army left Vietnam. He mirrored on  the challenges of surviving as a working-class, Asian male refugee within the U.S. “In my very own language I can say the whole lot,” he advised me. “Right here, I’m nothing.” His talking and sharing his story in our class was a type of training the primary noble reality with sangha. As we breathed collectively, we held his acknowledgement that there’s struggling.

A married couple, “the Lees,” would come to class diligently. It slowly got here out that they cherished to ballroom dance. Their faces lit up as they described dancing in Monterey Park. For them, dancing was an area of freedom, pleasure, neighborhood, and creativity within the face of previous historic trauma and present uncertainty as low wage employees searching for U.S. citizenship. My college students and I discovered that they every survived violence when battle consumed their nation of origin. On the identical time, they eagerly studied whilst they struggled to say phrases discovered on the U.S. naturalization examination like “structure” or “George Washington.” Once they taught us their favourite dance — the waltz — we observed their inhales and exhales as they moved by the steps. Drawing from their love of dance, we’d break down the phrase “Washington” in relation to inhaling and exhaling. Lastly, we practiced saying the phrase “Washington” (Wash-ing-ton) to the rhythm of the waltz (slow-quick-quick). This allowed us to create a hyperlink between their breath observe whereas dancing to respiratory by the anxiety-inducing U.S. naturalization examination.

Because the mass taking pictures, I’ve been frequently checking my e mail and the information to see if Julian, the Lees, and others are listed as useless. After the shooter, Mr. Tran, was discovered useless after a standoff, I preserve seeing the chorus that we at the moment are “protected” — that we must always heal as a neighborhood. I preserve mulling over these phrases: “security” and “therapeutic.” What does it imply to be protected on this scenario? What does it imply to heal? How will we acknowledge the struggling on this second and return to our breath?

As we observe with these questions, we should additionally reckon with and work to remodel the truth that violence, battle, and militarization are seen as regular in our lives. In response to the information, the shooter, Mr. Tran, had a semi-automatic handgun. It appears he had an prolonged journal hooked up to his gun. A majority of these weapons are assault weapons. When a shooter pulls the set off, or one bullet is fired, a brand new bullet is robotically loaded. In response to the Giffords Regulation Heart, assault weapons are supposed to kill on a mass scale. They’re speculated to shoot a lot of folks at a fast tempo and in a excessive quantity. They’re designed for the battlefield and to kill as many individuals as rapidly as attainable. But, this was utilized in a dance studio,

The shooter in Monterey Park is linked to lots of the deadliest shootings in fashionable American historical past. All these shooters used assault weapons outfitted with large-capacity magazines — from Monterey Park to Uvalde, Las Vegas, Orlando, Sandy Hook Elementary Faculty, Aurora, and Dayton. All these communities confronted weapons designed for battle, deployed of their on a regular basis lives – the place they danced, the place they went to be taught, the place they went to see a film.

As I wait to listen to if Julian, the Lees and others are alive, my coronary heart hurts. I yearn for us to ask, mirror, and act upon deeper questions. Mr. Tran acquired assault weapons meant for a battlefield and used them in a dance studio. Simply as Julian, the Lees, and I discover struggling and our breath on the Monterey Park library, I need us to note how battle, gendered violence and militarization influence our every day lives. How did battle, violence, and militarization have an effect on Mr. Tran as an Asian male and people round him? How have been his fundamental wants of meals and psychological well being care wants met or not met earlier than this mass killing? How was his cultural id and basic human dignity revered or not earlier than the mass taking pictures?

I implore us to reimagine what it means to be “protected” — a spot to bounce in neighborhood, to breathe and heal from battle and trauma, to have our fundamental wants for meals and psychological healthcare met. “Security” might be honoring and respecting basic human dignity, gender, and cultural identities, with mindfulness and breath — similar to Julian and the Lees.