The Brief

In a sparse multi-purpose room, a handful of middle-aged Chinese American women have rolled out black yoga mats and are studying the moves of a qigong instructor gently giving instructions.

Inhale. Gather. Exhale. 

Qigong — a mind-body-spirit practice using simple, repetitive exercises — is being offered at a new center in Monterey Park with a grimly-specific mission: tending to survivors and community members after the deadliest shooting in L.A. County history took place in their city.

The Monterey Park Resiliency Center offers mindfulness and stress-relief activities like qi gong.

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Josie Huang

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LAist

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Stretch through your wrists, and relax. 

Less than a mile from where the women focus on breath work, a gunman entered the Star Dance Ballroom Studio on Jan. 21 and fired on a crowd of mostly older Asian Americans celebrating the start of Lunar New Year. Eleven people died and nine others were injured.

Up until the shooting, Monterey Park was best-known for being America’s first suburban Chinatown, with a population of 62,000 that is two-thirds Asian.

Now it’s on a long list of places reeling from mass gun violence — and part of a smaller but growing network of cities that are opening federally-funded “resiliency centers” to help with recovery.

Triage, then healing 

Mass shootings are not only increasingly commonplace in the U.S. — 550 so far this year — they've grown in lethality over the past decade. Shootings in which four or more people are killed have nearly doubled.

Typically after the deadliest incidents, a crisis response team from the FBI parachutes into a community to set up a family assistance center, drawing help from local nonprofits with community ties. That was particularly key in Monterey Park with its large immigrant population. The lead nonprofit on the ground was the Chinatown Service Center, which typically provides medical and behavioral health services, but found itself helping victims’ families with burial services.

“That's really important to be able to speak the language and to understand how communities respond culturally when events like this happen,” said Kristina Rose, who heads the Office for Victims of Crime in the Department of Justice.

More and more communities have been transitioning their family assistance centers into long-term operations. Over the last decade, the Department of Justice has met the demand by awarding millions of dollars in grants to about 20 communities that want to provide ongoing legal aid, victim's advocacy and mental health counseling to survivors.

Over the last two years, resiliency centers have opened in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York. A few years earlier, a resiliency center opened in Las Vegas after the nation’s deadliest mass shooting.

An investigator works at the scene of a mass shooting in Monterey Park, California, on Jan. 22, 2023.

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Robyn Beck

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AFP via Getty Images

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When it became evident there was support for a resiliency center in Monterey Park, the Chinatown Service Center was a clear choice to operate the center, said Rose, whose office is currently working on the grant process with the nonprofit.

The MPK Hope Resiliency Center, as it is officially called, has been averaging about 80 visits a week since it fully opened in September. It’s a number that staff want to increase, given the hundreds of people they could be potentially serving along with partner organizations such as Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California and the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office.

Bringing mental health awareness

Notice how you feel, anything starting to open up. 

The qigong instructor, Dr. Sara Ptasnik is a physician at the Chinatown Service Center. She doesn’t speak Mandarin or Cantonese like her students, so the center’s case management coordinator, Janet Yu, interprets the best she can, toggling between both languages.

Offering in-language help is a priority at the Monterey Park center, but cultural competency extends beyond translating materials, according to its director Nina Loc.

“When it comes to the Asian population, it's more of the lack of awareness, lack of willingness to accept that there could be mental health issue within a family or within the culture,” said Loc who also serves as the behavioral health director at Chinatown Service Center.

The center's case management coordinator Janet Yu provides live interpreting as Dr. Sara Ptasnik teaches a qi gong class.

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Josie Huang

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LAist

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Loc said the inclination for many in the community is to not seek out counseling, which research bears out. A 2018 study by the federal Office of Minority Health found Asians were 60% less likely to have received mental health treatment than white people.

The Monterey Park center offers both individual and group therapy with the understanding that it’s not for everyone, especially an older, foreign-born generation.

That’s why there’s so much emphasis on offering stress-reduction activities such as yoga, Buddhist chanting, beading, cooking or journaling.

“We have heard a lot of individuals that don't feel comfortable going out,” Loc said. “These are signs that they're affected by [the shooting]. Hopefully coming through to the center, they could learn coping skills to be more comfortable with the new norm.”

And, Loc added, they may become more receptive to trying therapy in the future.

Open “essentially forever”

The Monterey Park resiliency center is temporarily being housed inside the Sierra Vista Community Center.

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Josie Huang

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LAist

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For some survivors, it may take months, if not years, to recognize they need help.

That’s the experience of staff at the resiliency center in Las Vegas. In 2017, a gunman killed 58 people and injured hundreds at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip. Years later, two more people died from shooting-related injuries.

Tyler Winkler, a victim right’s attorney at the center, said the five-year anniversary of the shooting last year served as a prompt for some survivors.

“That brought in a lot of folks who were like, ‘Wow, I think maybe I'm ready to see what you guys have going on,'” Winkler said.

Winkler said survivors’ trauma can stay buried for years — until it doesn’t.

A man writes a note on a 'Vegas Strong' banner on the Las Vegas Strip, after a gunman in 2017 killed 60 people at a country music festival.

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Drew Angerer

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Getty Images North America

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“They know lots of people were really affected by it but they don’t see it in themselves,” Winkler said. “Maybe they start noticing, ‘I’m snapping at my family more or I’m drinking more. I feel numb.'”

The center has worked with more than 10,000 people so far — survivors, first responders, their families — but estimates there are still many other people experiencing trauma who haven’t used their services. Winkler said that’s why the Vegas center is staying open for “essentially forever” — to be there for those people who need more time.

When the federal grant ended after four years, the Nevada state and Clark County government ponied up funding to keep the center open, and to extend services to other crime victims who were not part of the shooting, Winkler said.

Still, other centers have determined they've outlived their purpose and have wound down like the one in Newtown, Conn. Many of the child survivors of the 2014 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting are now graduating high school, its executive director noted.

When the world doesn’t feel safe 

Kung fu master Benson Lee spars with an assistant during a self-defense course at the Monterey Park resiliency center.

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Josie Huang

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LAist

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For the staff at the center in Monterey Park, staying open long-term is the goal.

The center is being run out of several rooms provided by the city at the Sierra Vista Community Center. But staff are hoping to lease a larger, permanent home to accommodate newcomers such as Maria Liang, the former owner of the Star Ballroom Dance Studio.

Liang, an avid dancer herself, wasn’t there the night of the shooting. But her brother was overseeing the Lunar New Year event at the studio, where he was injured, along with close friends and patrons she’d known for years.

“Some died and some were injured and now I decide that I close my business,” Liang said.

Liang visited the center this month to take a class for the first time. She followed the self-defense moves of kung fu instructor Benson Lee with ease. “It’s like dancing,” she explained.

Benson Lee, a kung fu master, teaches self-defense moves to Maria Liang, the former owner of the Star Dance Ballroom Studio at the Monterey Park Resiliency Center.

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Josie Huang

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LAist

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Liang, switching to Mandarin, said she tried the class because the world doesn’t feel safe and she wanted to learn better awareness and ways to protect herself.

She plans to return; another class has piqued her interest. Qigong, she said brightly, is good for your body.

A place of their own

Liang had been handed a calendar of activities the night before when she attended a private event for survivors held at the community center.

Hung in the lobby were blue paper hearts honoring the shooting victims. They had been displayed outside Monterey Park City Hall on signposts for months before being moved to their permanent home with the center.

The lobby of the Sierra Vista Community Center is hung with blue hearts honoring the victims of the Monterey Park shooting.

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Josie Huang

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LAist

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The lobby of the Sierra Vista Community Center is hung with blue hearts honoring the victims of the Monterey Park shooting.

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Josie Huang

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LAist

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As soft music tinkled in the background, some of the survivors took part in a painting activity. Then, a few spontaneously started to dance, Loc said.

“I'm getting goosebumps,” Loc said, recalling the night. “It was really, really touching.”

But, she added, “our work is not done yet.”

“Some can go back to dancing, some cannot,” she said. “We're not here to force anybody in any direction but you can provide them with tools.”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

In Los Angeles, the buzz around HBO’s “Heated Rivalry’ isn’t just about the drama on-ice, it’s sparking heated debates off the rink. 

Through her Substack, “Black Girl Watching,” critic and filmmaker Brooke Obie has been hosting in-person salons and online critique sessions about films like “Sinners” and the hit TV hockey romance.

“I believe in the power of criticism and the necessity of it as a tool to fight fascism and I am always going to create community spaces where we can think critically about the media we consume,” Obie told The LA Local.

As the show’s popularity grows, fans and advocates are asking whether its success reflects real inclusion or another moment of rainbow capitalism in sports.

Brooke Obie, creator of the Black Girl Watching Substack.

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Courtesy of Brooke Obie

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Obie said that there are many Black fans of “Heated Rivalry,” so she wanted to create a safe space for them to discuss it.

“(We) talk about some of the racial nuances of the show that impact the ways characters are treated by the fandom,” she said. “And (we discuss) how existing racist and sexist tropes can be used to interpret characters when too much is left to the imagination of the audience by the writers.”

The Canadian drama is based on the novels by Rachel Reid. It was created for TV by Jacob Tierney and follows two closeted rival hockey players, Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander, whose secret romance unfolds over years of competition. 

It premiered quietly on the streaming service Crave before being licensed to HBO Max, where it grew into what HBO executive Casey Bloys called a “word-of-mouth sensation,” even with little marketing.

From left, Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) in “Heated Rivalry”.

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Sabrina Lantos

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HBO Max

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The show’s success has been swift and unusual, given its origins on a small Canadian streamer and lack of marquee names. Its stars, Connor Storrie (Ilya) and Hudson Williams (Shane), have appeared at awards shows, carried the Olympic torch and posed for glossy photo shoots. Social media is flooded with fan edits and watch parties.

Recreational hockey leagues reported an uptick in queer participation.

But beneath the celebration, fans like Obie say the conversation is incomplete.

She said she noticed early on that online conversations about the show often lacked racial nuance — particularly around Shane, who is written as having a Japanese mother but rarely explores that cultural identity on screen.

“With a white author and a white showrunner at the helm, Shane’s lack of culturally Japanese experiences is a clear weak spot in a fantastic show,” Obie said.

Obie added that the goal of critical dialogue around the series is not to tear down the show but to create an inclusive space where LGBTQ+ fans of color and others in the margins can feel seen in a fandom that often skews white.

Joel Relampagos announces the casting of his new reality series.

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Courtesy of Joel Relampagos

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The show’s impact has been positive for a sports culture that has historically marginalized queer athletes. Specifically, there has been a queerification of sports since the show’s premiere, according to Emmy-winning producer Joel Relampagos.

Relampagos, who is developing a reality series focused on queer athletes, told The LA Local that he has seen more athletes willing to share their stories since the show premiered.

“We really have to eliminate that old mentality that being an athlete looks a certain way — like it’s a monolith,” Relampagos said. “When in fact, it’s so not.”

He has received submissions from queer hockey players across the United States and Canada, including many from L.A. Some are still closeted. Others say the show gave them courage to consider coming out.

Former professional golfer and LGBTQ+ sports law and policy expert Maya Satya Reddy told The LA Local that she has seen an influx of new queer hockey fans and increased interest in competitive recreational leagues such as Outloud LA, She/They Sports, GLASA Softball and Lambda Basketball in Los Angeles. 

“The impact ‘Heated Rivalry’ has had on so many, athletes and non-athletes alike, is incredible and something to be celebrated,” Reddy said. “But describing it as revolutionary in changing queer and trans sports spaces is disingenuous. It’s only been two months!”

Reddy, who is of South Asian descent, founded the Queer Asian Social Club, a Los Angeles-based LGBTQ+ advocacy group.

She said she left playing golf because of discrimination and pivoted to LGBTQ+ sports law and policy advocacy. She founded the Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Sports Project and participated in programming for the first-ever Pride Day at PGA Championship.

“I have lived this,” Reddy said. “I have seen firsthand, both personally through my athletic career, and professionally in my law and policy work the importance of representation and its shortcomings.”

She celebrates “Heated Rivalry” but said there is still little effort to drive systemic change in the sport beyond the heavy attempt to capitalize financially on its success.

GBTQ+ sports law and policy expert Maya Satya Reddy plays golf.

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Courtesy of Maya Reddy

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Since the show debuted, Williams and Storrie’s fame has skyrocketed. So has that of their co-stars François Arnaud and Robbie G.K., who play characters that have a tertiary romance on the show.

“Hudson and Connor’s invitation to be torch bearers is the perfect example of the impact this show has had on sports,” said Reddy. “It is clear as day that the (International Olympic Committee) made this selection as a marketing ploy to capitalize on the craze.”

Reddy points out that IOC President Kirsty Coventry has recently made it a “core mission to target trans athletes.” 

In June 2025, Coventry created a working group to review “protecting the female category.” At the end of last year, it was reported that the IOC is considering a a policy that would ban transgender athletes from the Olympic Games, potentially affecting the 2028 games in Los Angeles.

Reddy also mentioned recent news of USA Hockey banning trans people from participating in certain programs. She noted that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who praised “Heated Rivalry,” is the same commissioner who faced backlash for banning promotional warm-up jerseys, which included Pride-themed jerseys as well as Pride tape on hockey sticks. 

“I’m only aware of one person involved with ‘Heated Rivalry’ who spoke about any of this — Harrison Browne, a trans professional hockey player that appeared in the series,” Reddy said.

“At the same time, the two leads of the show were being congratulated and celebrated for being selected by the IOC as torch bearers for the Winter Olympics,” she added.

“Neither Hudson nor Connor has said anything about this ban in USA Hockey, nor have they, at least meaningfully, mentioned or celebrated their trans cast member Harrison.”

Some breezy conditions will linger this morning, but otherwise we're looking at a slightly cooler day.

The warmest area today will be the Coachella Valley, where temperatures will reach 75 to 80 degrees.

Elsewhere, we should stay under 80 degrees today across the region. The beaches will remain around the low to mid 70s, up to 75 degrees for coastal Orange County. Most L.A. County valleys, the Inland Empire and inland Orange County will hover in the mid to upper 70s.

The coolest areas today will be the Santa Clarita Valley, where temperatures there will be from 64 to 71 degrees, and the Antelope Valley where temperatures will range from 58 to 86 degrees.

The story first appeared on The LA Local.

Koreatown will be a bit crowded in June as thousands of fans gather for multiple FIFA World Cup watch parties.

Organizers from local Korean groups announced Wednesday the schedule of events as the South Korean team is set to play in three games in Mexico on June 11, 18 and 24. 

Viewing parties for the June 11 opener and the June 24 match where South Korea will take on South Africa will be held at Liberty Park in Koreatown. Organizers estimate 1,500 to 2,000 attendees and will close off Serrano Avenue next to the park to accommodate food trucks. A large LED screen showing the game will face Wilshire Boulevard, with sponsor booths lining the street.

Although kickoff for the games that will be broadcast in the evening, programming will start at 2 p.m. with performances and other activities at Liberty Park.

Event organizers include the Korean American Federation of Los Angeles, the LA Korean Festival Foundation, and the Korean American Chamber of Commerce.

The June 18 game against Mexico is projected to draw 2,000 to 3,000 attendees, organizers said. Duha Hwang with event organizer Advue said they plan to shut down Normandie Avenue along the same stretch used for the LA Korean Festival at Seoul International Park.

Programming for the Mexico match will start at 10 a.m. and run as an all-day event, Hwang said. 

“This will likely be the biggest game of the group stage for our neighborhood,” Hwang said. “Koreatown is home not only to Korean Americans but to many different communities. We want this to be a joint celebration, where both Korean and Mexican communities come together to support their teams.” 

South Korea’s opponent for the June 11 game will be determined after European league play concludes later this spring. They could play against Czechia, Denmark, North Macedonia or the Republic of Ireland.

Inglewood is one of several North American host cities for this year’s games, but South Korea will be playing their matches in Mexico.

Hwang said this year is especially meaningful, given the World Cup is being held in North America for the first time since 1994. 

“In 2002, many of us were in Korea cheering on the national team. Now, the World Cup is being held here, on the continent where we live. Being able to cheer for Team Korea here at home makes this moment particularly significant,” Hwang said. 

Organizers acknowledged parking will be limited and encouraged attendees to use public transit or rideshare services. Hwang said they will look into plans to operate shuttle buses.

Before he was released from prison, artist Fulton Leroy Washington (a.k.a. Mr. Wash) made a promise to his fellow inmates.

“I explained to the guys with tears in their eyes, and not just in their eyes, but running down their cheeks, that they were going to return home. And [...] I was leaving to go and prepare a place for them,” he said.

Mr. Wash was convicted of a non-violent drug offense he maintains he didn’t commit and was sentenced to life in prison because of mandatory minimums. He served more than 20 years in federal prison before he was granted clemency and had his sentence commuted by President Barack Obama in 2016.

'Art is like therapy'

While he was incarcerated, Mr. Wash began to draw and paint, and then taught art to others at three different prisons in Kansas, Colorado and finally Lompoc, California, for 18 years.

“I changed the lives of a lot of prisoners.  Each prison I went to, the warden would ask me to do what you did there, here,” he said. “I would continue to teach and share, give guidance and mentorship, and sometimes therapy. ‘Cause art is like therapy. I could use it as a way to reach and find out some of the [...] deepest things going on with them.”

Mr. Wash first began drawing after his lawyer asked him to sketch a person from memory — a witness who she hoped to track down to help with his defense. While it didn’t prevent his conviction, it did help his attorney locate the person, and after that, he said, “I promised God at that time that I would continue to practice [art] and to share it.”

He gained media attention for his portraits and other paintings he made while incarcerated, and in 2014 completed a work depicting Obama granting him clemency.

"Emancipation Proclamation," 2014.

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Courtesy of Mr. Wash

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“Whether directly or indirectly,” Mr. Wash wrote in his new book Artists in Space, “I also believe that art played a part in President Obama commuting my sentence and bringing me home in 2016.”

Mr. Wash’s paintings have since been featured in the Hammer Museum, LACMA, The Huntington Library and at a solo show at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery.

Now he’s released Artists in Space to help fund the creation of a community center — including space for art classes and housing for formerly incarcerated people — at the site of his art studio on Rosecrans Avenue in Compton.

‘Artists in Space’

Artists in Space features interviews with 20 Los Angeles artists, photographed in the usually private spaces where they work.

Some of these artists helped to fund Mr. Wash’s legal defense and many offered their own spaces for him to work in after he was released from prison.

Patrisse Cullors, the artist and co-founder of Black Lives Matter, offered Mr. Wash space to work on a larger scale painting at her Crenshaw Dairy Mart, which in turn helped inspire Mr. Wash’s vision for the Art By Wash Studio & Community Center.

A portion of "Artists in Space," which features 20 L.A. artists, including Patrisse Cullors, in conversation with Mr. Wash.

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Joppe Jacob Rog

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Artists Kenneth Gatewood and Charles Bibbs, who Mr. Wash counts as mentors and who are also featured in the book, helped contribute to his legal defense fund for years.

“And I had never met them,” Mr. Wash said. “They were selling their work and giving 25% of their work to pay the legal fees to try to get me out.”

Making the vision a reality

The Compton location where Mr. Wash works today has already been transformed significantly — from a dilapidated, overgrown lot to one that now includes his studio, office, and a large outdoor area (made over with donated paint and astroturf) with walls that artists and community members are invited to make their mark on.

Mr. Wash’s vision for the space is for it to be a “two-way bridge” that provides young people with a creative outlet to set their futures on a positive trajectory, and as a place for formerly incarcerated people to live and create art.

A rendering of the Art By Wash Studio & Community Center.

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The NOW Institute

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His hope is that the main building will be completed before the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, but still needs to raise several million dollars to make that a reality.

He’s currently raising money to fund the construction through sales of Artists in Space, donations to the nonprofit Help Us Help Wash, and by selling his own paintings, which he continues to create in his Compton studio, most often working in silence.

“I just pray,” Mr. Wash said. “If you listen to music or TV or radio, to me, while you’re working, part of your energy and spirit is being [put] into that [...] It's captured you. And so I, a lot of times, choose not to be captured again. So I just stay within me and within God and just keep going forward.”

How to attend

An Artists in Space BBQ and launch party, with Mr. Wash and Patrisse Cullors in conversation with Evan Pricco of The Unibrow, is from 2 to 6 p.m. March 7 at the Art By Wash Studio & Community Center, 915 W. Rosecrans Ave., Compton. RSVP here.