Ballroom dancing has been a draw for older immigrants in Southern California, an art form that’s not only popular in their countries of origin but also one that’s embraced, recognized and accessible in the U.S.
in Monterey Park over the weekend, it was more than just the latest tragedy in America’s horrific mass-shooting epidemic., one of the best-known hubs of the vibrant Asian American ballroom dance community in Southern California — a longtime safe haven for older immigrants, the kind of place where they knew they would be welcomed.
All of the victims slain at the ballroom studio — who included immigrants from Taiwan, China and the Philippines — were in their 50s, 60s or 70s. Yutian Wong, a professor at San Francisco State University‘s School of Theater and Dance who specializes in Asian American dance studies, said her father, a 70-something Malaysian immigrant, probably would have been at the ballroom when the shooting happened Saturday night, if he hadn’t been dropping off a relative somewhere else.
“Lots of immigrant communities — Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino — have ballroom dance studios,” said Carolina San Juan, director of graduate mentoring for the academic advancement program at UCLA, who did her master’s thesis on Filipino American ballroom dancers. “It’s ours, ballroom dancing belongs to us, and when I say us, I mean all immigrants. Lots of immigrant communities, not just Asians.”
A 2007 scholarly article from the Journal of Asian American Studies noted that although dance studios are “ubiquitous” across Southern California, only a few existed expressly for international-style ballroom dancing, with the largest located in Asian American enclaves such as Monterey Park — a city several miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
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