Honoring the lives lost in the Monterey Park mass shooting

Ma, a beloved manager at Star Ballroom Dance Studio, was remembered by family and friends as a pillar in the close-knit Monterey Park community and a source of humor and compassion.

He was known affectionately as Mr. Ma, according to David DuVal, an instructor at the studio. Ma had emigrated from China, where he had been part of a well-known dance group.

“He loved what he did,” DuVal said.

Lily Ko, who has taken a class at Star every Tuesday for two years, recalled sneaking glimpses of Ma teaching another class, noticing his ease on the dance floor.

Whenever he spotted her group dancing, Ko said, he made a point to encourage them. Her classes ended around 10 p.m., and Ma often waited for her so she wouldn’t have to walk to her car alone.

“He made sure I was safe,” Ko recalled.

Qiang Bjornbak, a Rosemead lawyer, described Ma as a social connector whose death has sent shock waves through the broader San Gabriel Valley Chinese community.

“He knows so many people,” Bjornbak said of Ma, describing the warm messages about him that have flooded her many WeChat groups.

He was immensely talented and kind, she said, and “super, super friendly.”

A dancer at the studio, Lauren Woods, recalled her final interactions with Ma, who she said helped her find parking just hours before he was killed.

“I’m personally thankful to have that last beautiful interaction,” Woods said in a Facebook post. “I’m heartbroken. To the ones who were there and so many other dancers in our community, I’m so glad you got to meet and get to know Ma and his beautiful soul. ... He was the heart of Star Ballroom.”

Another woman said Ma was integral in helping her find her way in Los Angeles.

“I know Mr. Ma since I was 19-20 years old, from day one I move to LA. I had bad English no life experiences no teaching experience as well, but he was nice and kind, give me first job, always supporting me helping me a lot,” Nina Zhiting Yang wrote in a Facebook post.

Ma helped build “a community that dearly loved and respected him for his kindness and liveliness,” according to a GoFundMe page set up to help with his funeral expenses.

In an interview with the Pasadena Star-News in 2016, Ma said that Star Ballroom Dance Studio was a place where people from different cultures could join one another to dance.

“I want to provide an active place for the Asian community of Monterey Park to help prolong their life and improve their health,” he told the Star-News. “Having a place where people from all over the world can come together and communicate through dance is how I can help.”

Tom loved to dance, her family said, and was doing just that on her last night — ringing in the Lunar New Year with friends at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio.

“Diana Tom was a hard-working mother, wife and grandmother who loved to dance,” her family said in a statement.

“To those who knew her, she was someone who always went out of her way to give to others,” her family said. They asked that people honor her legacy by donating to the Monterey Park Lunar New Year Victims Fund, launched by the Southern California branch of Asian Americans Advancing Justice and several other organizations supporting the Asian American Pacific Islander community.

Tom was one of four patients being treated at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center after the shooting. Her family announced she died at the hospital on Sunday.

Alvero was remembered by family members as a “loving father, a dedicated son and brother, a grandfather who loved his three nieces and nephews like his own children.”

“Please remember that Valentino is more than just a headline or a news story,” the family wrote in a statement. “He loved people and hearing about their lives and, in return, he shared his own stories with so much gusto and enthusiasm that you couldn’t help but listen and laugh along with him.”

Alvero loved to ballroom dance and was the “life of any party,” according to his family.

“We hope that he danced to his heart’s content until the very end and hope that he is now dancing in heaven,” they wrote.

Alvero was a Filipino American, according to the Philippine consulate general in Los Angeles, and was a devout Catholic, his family said. They called it a “great travesty” that he didn’t receive his last rites, a sacrament administered before death.

“Our family would like to request all priests and Catholics to pray for him by name, Valentino Marcos Alvero,” the family wrote. “He was a faithful servant of God and we know that he would want the world to lift his family in prayer more than anything.”

Jian was known as Nancy to her neighbors, who said she liked to play volleyball.

“She’s a very active person,” said Serena Liu, 33, who lived next door to Jian. “She used to say she can make friends with anyone if she wants. She’s a very nice, cute, kind person.”

She liked to sing, go out dancing and play piano. She also liked to offer friends and neighbors food, Liu said.

Jian was from Sichuan province and her husband is from Shanghai, according to Liu. For years, Jian planned to go back to China to visit her mother, who is in her 90s, but she wasn’t able to because of COVID-19 restrictions, Liu said.

Another neighbor, Amy De La Cruz, 31, liked to talk about plants with Jian and the two exchanged pots. Jian gave her some tomatoes; for her birthday, she gave De La Cruz a scarf.

A man answered the door for an address listed in public records under Jian’s name and confirmed that his loved one passed away but declined to provide his name or to be interviewed.

“I’m very sad,” he said.

Yau, also known as Charlie, was a “caring father, uncle, brother and friend,” according to a statement from his family.

His family remembered him as a happy man who believed in living life to the fullest.

“Taking every opportunity to cultivate his love of music, dance and travel, he often expressed gratitude for life and reflected upon the lessons he learned,” the statement said. “He treasured his friendships, and enjoyed spending time with the people he loved.”

He was supportive of family, and his son remembered him as “generous with words of love and affirmation.”

Yau was a dual Taiwanese and American citizen, according to Amy Wang, the director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles.

Yau wasn’t supposed to be at the Star Dance Studio on Saturday night. He had planned to go with three friends to other Lunar New Year festivities, but they couldn’t find parking, according to Niu, who had been at the dance studio that night and spoke with Yau’s friends. Niu asked to be identified only by his first name.

Yau and his friends ran into Ma, the manager of the studio, in the parking lot. Ma was trying to ensure that only people who were going to the Star dance studio event parked there. But Ma recognized Yau as a regular and let him park there. The group later joined the festivities inside, Niu said.

Yau didn’t survive the shooting, but his three friends did.

Ung was a refugee from Vietnam who found a strong and welcoming community in Monterey Park, according to a statement from her family read aloud by Monterey Park City Councilmember Thomas Wong at a public vigil Tuesday night.

“My aunt loved to dance. She also loved to eat and gamble. Sometimes, I hear, she even tried to do all three at the same time,” Ung’s family wrote in the statement. “Much like our community, she was complicated, messy, easy to love and sometimes hard to understand from the outside.”

Though Ung didn’t live in Monterey Park, she found a deep sense of kinship in the city “where the heart of the AAPI community beat strongest,” her family said.

It took decades before she was able to immigrate to the United States to join other family members who had fled Vietnam in the 1970s and ’80s. A daughter of Ung migrated to a different country, and they were reunited recently for the first time in many years.

Her daughter “has come to see her mother, and now to bury her,” the statement said.

The relatives said they are processing pain, grief and anger, but asked that “we move forward in the coming weeks and months as a community with love and kindness, as antidotes to the violence we have experienced.”

“Our family story has echoes all over our San Gabriel Valley community. Of war, migration, loss, love, hardship, hard work, pain, and joy,” Ung’s family wrote. “Let us come together stronger as a family and community. Let us make sure that beyond this moment, we continue to dance and create spaces for joy.”