After Monterey Park shooting, pastor tried to de-stigmatize therapy for Asian immigrants

Eric Chen never met Yu Lun Kao. But in February, he helped bury the 72-year-old ballroom dancer known to his friends as “Mr. Nice.”

Kao, who went by Andy, was shielding his longtime dance partner from the hail of bullets when he was killed during the shooting at Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park. He’d been a fixture in the dance community since immigrating from Taiwan two decades ago.

Chen is a Taiwanese pastor in San Gabriel. His mother worked for Kao’s older brother and sister-in-law in the 1990s, which made the Jan. 21 Monterey Park massacre “not just news you read about.”

“It felt surreal that a tragedy like this would affect a family that I’ve known for 30 years,” Chen told The Times. “That’s where the tragedy hits even closer to home.”

After the shooting, Chen served as the liaison among Kao’s family, U.S. Rep. Judy Chu’s office and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles. Chu and Taiwanese Director General Amino Chi spoke at Kao’s funeral.

So did Chen, who translated the funeral sermon from Chinese to English and brought Kao’s old friends to tears.

“I want to exhort all of us, including myself, to take advantage of every opportunity available to spread this peace and shalom so that the hatred that caused the tragedy in Monterey Park will dissipate all around us,” Chen told the mourners.

Chen first got involved in the San Gabriel Valley dance community in December 2021, when a friend, who was active in the Latin dance scene, wanted to rent out Star Ballroom for a dance social.

Chen’s friend was hitting resistance because Maria Liang, the owner of the dance studio, was concerned the dancers would trash the place. Chen got involved and spoke with her in Mandarin to persuade her to rent out the venue.

Chen danced at Star a few more times over the years and was added to a WeChat group with several hundred others in the region’s dance community.

He had planned to go to the Lunar New Year festival in Monterey Park and then attend the party at Star Dance. But his girlfriend wanted to eat some hot pot in San Gabriel instead, so they shifted gears.

That night, messages started pouring into the WeChat group. It was how Chen learned that there had been a shooting.

Star Ballroom? What’s going on? Is Mr. Ma OK?

Chen posted information from social media or local politicians into the group chat. He helped survivors get their belongings back, the car keys and passports they’d abandoned at Star Dance when they fled to safety.

Chen saw that the Langley Senior Citizen Center had been set up as a resource center for victims, but that the information wasn’t being offered in other languages online. So he translated it from English to Chinese and directed survivors to the center.

“I tried to be that glue, because as you know, it’s an immigrant community,” he said. “There’s a language barrier so I was just trying to bridge that gap.”

Chen was the thread that connected the group of about 40 survivors with representatives from the county, the state and even the White House. During President Biden’s visit to Monterey Park, Chen helped reach out to survivors and families of the deceased to make sure they were invited.

Shally, whose dance partner died in the shooting and who witnessed the shooting, pays her respects at a makeshift memorial for victims of the mass shooting outside Star Ballroom Dance Studio on Jan. 24 in Monterey Park, Calif.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Chen saw a gap between what service providers were offering and what the victims could navigate. Survivors were trying to get money from the California Victim Compensation Board, the agency that provides up to $70,000 to victims of violence. Victims have to fill out forms that include proof of crime-related expenses such as mental health treatment, income loss or job training.

But some of the survivors had trouble figuring out how to do that.

Chen tried to help the survivors as best he could by answering their questions, providing translation and helping them get the necessary paperwork for compensation.

“You’re already going through this trauma,” Chen said.”The last thing you need is for them to try to get all the paperwork and try to call the doctors and say, ‘Hey do you have my confirmation that I was shot in the leg?’”

Chen also met Lloyd Gock, who survived the massacre, through the WeChat group. Right after the shooting, Gock called Chen, saying that he was having nightmares and couldn’t sleep. He texted Chen throughout the night, until 2 or 3 a.m. Chen was there for Gock during the immediate crisis but also stressed that he isn’t a licensed clinician. He encouraged Gock to go to the Langley Center to seek professional help.

Eric Chen, a San Gabriel pastor and speech and debate coach at Gabrielino High School in San Gabriel, helped the survivors of the Monterey Park mass shooting get access to necessary resources, such as mental health counseling. He is shown at Church of Our Savior on Wednesday in San Gabriel.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Gock went to a few counseling sessions at first, but eventually stopped, he told The Times. He said he wants to go back because he’s “quietly traumatized” by what happened. Life after the tragedy hasn’t been the same.

Sometimes, Gock said, he will forget to lock his door or drive to a restaurant and accidentally leave his car engine on. Other times, he’ll feel afraid to walk through the parking lot back to his house because it’s dark. He lost motivation to work and his clothing company suffered.

“The things that have to do with my business, have to do with my memory, sometimes my temper. I’m not that great,” he said. “I end up picking up fights with people. I get irritated very easily. And I’m sure that has something to do with it.”

Chen’s main focus has been on de-stigmatizing mental health for older Asian immigrants. He and Gock started a monthly support group for survivors. The first meeting took place in April.

The survivors have opened up about what happened to them. Some say they’re still struggling with trauma but have gone back to dancing. Others prefer to go on walks or to the gym to stay active. Some don’t say much at all.

“We were able to create a space for people to share and to talk about whatever it is they want to talk about,” Chen said. “In that sense, it’s a formation of a new family, a new community in and of itself.”

The group hasn’t met since the summer, but Chen is hoping to set up another meeting in the next few weeks to celebrate Christmas, ahead of the one-year anniversary of the shooting.

Chen helped organize a Feb. 3 news conference with nonprofit organizations, such as Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-based Violence, Family Keepers and Love and Conflict Peacemaking Ministries. He invited Chu’s office and had psychologists and attorneys speak. The event, called “Reflection on the Chinese American Shooting Incident,” was held at the SunnyDay Adult Day Health Care in El Monte.

A woman prays at the memorial for 11 people who died in a mass shooting during Lunar New Year celebrations outside the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park on Jan. 26.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“I think that as a pastor in the community who spoke Chinese, he could reach some people that would otherwise have been reluctant to talk about the trauma that they’ve gone through,” Rep. Chu said. “They weren’t reaching out to people, they kept to themselves and it took them a while to recognize that they really needed to talk to others about their situation.”

Chen has persuaded some of the survivors to go to counseling by saying that, if they want to apply for compensation or if there’s ever a lawsuit, they need to prove they were traumatized.

“It’s a year later and the cameras are gone for the most part, but the recovery for the people directly affected by it, it’s gonna take years and years and years to walk alongside them,” he said. “This is something that’s going to affect people for the rest of their lives.”

Chen has been trying to take his own advice and has dialed back his involvement in the community for the sake of his mental health. He said he “hit a wall” about a month ago and felt overwhelmed.

Chen is still getting himself out of it. To unwind, he bought a season pass to Magic Mountain. He’s been to one therapy session and even that, he said, took a lot of his energy.

“I’m in the situation,” he said, “where I’ve come to realize I’ve experienced vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue and burnout.”