Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published October 18, 2023 5:00 AM
A newly opened "resiliency center" in Monterey Park is promoting the importance of mental health after a deadly mass shooting rocked the city earlier this year.
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Josie Huang
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Topline:
Monterey Park has joined a growing network of cities that have opened “resiliency centers” to help survivors of gun violence recover from trauma.
The backstory: Earlier this year, a gunman killed 11 people at a ballroom dance studio in L.A. County’s worst mass shooting. The center in Monterey Park focuses on providing therapy and teaching coping skills to a largely Asian immigrant clientele.
What's a resiliency center? After a mass shooting, some communities decide they want to provide long-term services to survivors and community members, everything from legal aid to mental health counseling. The Department of Justice has provided millions in grants to about 20 communities nationwide.
How Monterey Park’s center is different: Programs are provided in Mandarin and Cantonese, the first language of many locals. There’s also the challenge of overcoming cultural reluctance in Asian American communities to seek help. There's a heavy emphasis on mindfulness and stress reduction activities for clients who may not want therapy but could use trauma coping skills.
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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Stretch through your wrists, and relax.
Listen
3:55
For Monterey Park’s Shooting Survivors, A Place To Mend The Mind and Spirit
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.
Monterey Park Resiliency Center 311 N. Rural Dr., Monterey Park, CA 91755 (currently housed inside the Sierra Vista Park Community Center) E-mail: mpkhoperc@cscla.org Ph: 626-609-3399 Website: https://www.mpkhope.com/ Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
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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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.
Ways to talk to Asian American elders about mental health:
Share how you went to a therapist for a problem, like with work or school. Then list the ways a therapist has helped.
Be open-minded and curious about the elder's viewpoints.
If the elder is not interested in traditional therapy, see if they would like to talk to someone at church or temple.
The Monterey Park resiliency center is temporarily being housed inside the Sierra Vista Community Center.
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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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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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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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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.”
MORE MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES FOR THE AAPI COMMUNITY
It's Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. For many Jews around the world, a highlight of the holiday will be hearing the shofar: an animal's horn blown like a trumpet.
What is a shofar: It can be the small, curved horn of a ram or the dramatic spiral of an African antelope. The sound it creates is unmistakable.
Read on to find out how this instrument became a holiday's spiritual soundtrack.
It can be the small, curved horn of a ram or the dramatic spiral of an African antelope. The sound it creates is unmistakable.
Creating that sound is not difficult, but it does take some practice, said Rabbi Alicia Jo Rabins, a musician based in Portland, Oregon.
You take a deep breath and purse your lips, like you are playing a brass instrument.
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, begins at sunset Friday. Across the world, Jews will spend the two-day holiday in prayer, reflection and celebration. And for many, a highlight will be hearing the shofar: an animal's horn blown like a trumpet.
How did this primal instrument become a holiday's spiritual soundtrack?
" The most basic answer is that it makes noise, right? It calls people to attention," said Daniel Picus, an associate professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham who researches religious practices and rituals. "All of the instances in which a shofar is used in the Hebrew Bible, that is what it's doing."
Abraham Ribak , an Israeli, blows a shofar, a musical instrument used in Jewish religious ceremonies made from the horn of a ram.
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Ariel Schalit
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Shofar blasts marked the revelation of the Torah at Mt. Sinai and the start of the Jubilee year, Picus said. Priests blew shofars when they circled the walls of Jericho to bring down the walls. The shofar marks moments of heightened experience and emotion — and Rosh Hashanah.
"In the Hebrew Bible, Rosh Hashanah is the day of trumpeting and the day of remembrance," Picus said. "The association of the shofar with Rosh Hashanah is right there in the Biblical text."
Centuries later, the Mishnah, the earliest rabbinic codification of law, drilled down into greater detail in the tractate Rosh Hashanah, laying out exactly how a shofar should be prepared (hollowed out), repaired (it depends), blown (a complex series of blasts at several times during the service, thanks to debate over linguistic interpretation), and whether or not it can be blown when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat (no, although some modern synagogues have changed course).
And within the Talmud and for centuries thereafter, people have debated the meaning of the shofar.
Shofars are on display for sale at the Barsheshet-Ribak Shofarot company, in Tel Aviv, Israel.
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Ariel Schalit
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Rabbi Micha'el Rosenberg, who teaches at the Hadar Institute, a center for Jewish learning based in New York City, pointed to several sources that compare the sound of the shofar to the cry of a mother in pain — the mother of the slain biblical military commander Sisera, and the cries of a woman in labor.
Rosenberg said you can hear that in the sound — especially the broken staccato blasts, known as "teruah."
"You can really imagine someone so caught up that they can't get the full sound out even, that they're gasping with their cries," he said.
Another interpretation comes from Maimonides, the medieval Jewish rabbi and scholar known as the Rambam, who wrote "The Laws of Repentance." He describes the blast of the shofar as a sort of spiritual wake-up call to become your best self.
"In Jewish law, we have this expression of daled amos, my four cubits: I focus on the 6 feet around me, as it were," he said. "It's easy to do that — and there's value in doing that sometimes. But the shofar, per the Rambam, wakes us up and says, 'No, there's more beyond what I can immediately see around me.'"
Rosenberg also pointed to Hasidic theories that the blowing of the shofar reenacts the breathing of life into the world. But he said one of the most powerful things about the shofar is that it doesn't say anything at all. "It transcends my words, it transcends my rational thoughts, and it really is just a feeling that I can hope to hold onto," he said.
Rabins, the Portland rabbi and musician, said the shofar can call across time to speak to those wordless places inside us. "It really brings you into the moment, and you also feel connected to your ancestors, who have been hearing this sound and making this sound for thousands of years," she said.
It's a sound, Rabin said, that can wake you up to all the joy and sadness of life, whether it be a birthday horn or a mother's cry. And it makes you pay attention — both to this moment, and to the year to come.
This story was created through a partnership between NPR and Religion News Service.
Copyright 2026 NPR
Suzanne Tenner/Marvel/Disney+; Apple TV; Warrick Page/MAX; Apple TV; Emma Simkin/HBO
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Topline:
The Pitt, Hacks, Widow's Bay and Pluribus are leading the Emmy nominations pack this year.
So: Here's who we'll have our fingers crossed for during the ceremony on Monday night.
How to watch the show: The 2026 Emmys will air live on NBC and stream on Peacock on Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, beginning at 5 p.m. PT.
TV critics care a lot about the people who bring us the shows we love, so of course we each have folks we're pulling for this Emmy season. The Pitt, Hacks, Widow's Bay and Pluribus are leading the Emmy nominations pack this year. Here's who we'll have our fingers crossed for during the ceremony on Monday night.
How to watch
The 2026 Emmys will air live on NBC and stream on Peacock on Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, beginning at 5 p.m. PT.
Outstanding drama series: Pluribus
Rhea Seehorn in "Pluribus."
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HBO Max hit The Pitt likely wins here. But Apple TV's Pluribustriumphs as a revolutionary sci-fi story; a virus, created with instructions sent from the stars, unites humanity in a giant hive mind, creating paradise or the largest cult in history. — Eric Deggans
Outstanding lead actor, drama: Noah Wyle, The Pitt
Noah Wyle in "The Pitt."
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Warrick Page
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It's easy to overlook the massive feat star Noah Wyle achieved on The Pitt's second season; pushing a beloved character to the brink of unlikability. Wyle plays struggling Dr. "Robby" Rabinovich as a good guy in serious crisis, finding new depths. — Eric Deggans
Outstanding lead actress, drama: Rhea Seehorn, Pluribus
Rhea Seehorn in "Pluribus."
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At least half of this show is just watching Rhea Seehorn's Carol all by herself, parsing out the rules of a new post-apocalyptic world while mourning her wife. Yet it's always compelling, because Seehorn is a talent who should already have an Emmy! — Aisha Harris
Hoping Emmy voters look past the four actresses nominated from The Pitt to honor a performer who brought empathy and depth to a thankless role: Karolina Wydra as Zosia, the voice of the global hive mind, talking to Rhea Seehorn's Carol in Pluribus. — Eric Deggans
Apple TV's Margo's Got Money Troubles is a comedy nominee that doesn't seem like one. But the story of a young woman leaning into problematic choices to build a life with her baby and quirky family was the year's most surprising, energizing show. — Eric Deggans
Outstanding lead actor, comedy: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Wonder Man
Yahya Adbul-Mateen II in "Wonder Man."
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This nomination was a surprise after Marvel cancelled its creative, quirky superhero series, Wonder Man. But star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is spellbinding as a superpowered guy who just wants to be a successful actor, blending comedy, pathos and drama. — Eric Deggans
Outstanding lead actress, comedy: Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback
Lisa Kudrow in "The Comeback."
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Emma Simkin
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The category's stacked, but Lisa Kudrow's Valerie Cherish threads many needles beautifully: self-absorbed yet caring, oft-humiliated yet resilient, wacky but grounded when necessary. As a character in Season 3 says to her: "To me, you're it." Indeed. — Aisha Harris
Outstanding supporting actress, comedy: Kate O'Flynn, Widow's Bay
Kate O'Flynn in "Widow's Bay."
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It's all there in Episode 4, the one in which Patricia's desperate play to improve her social status — a cocktail party — goes awry. Kate O'Flynn knows this character, what drives her and what makes her so cringe (to us). It's utterly mesmerizing. — Aisha Harris
Outstanding supporting actor, comedy: Nick Offerman, Margo's Got Money Troubles
Nick Offerman in "Margo's Got Money Troubles."
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Nick Offerman excels playing macho guys who are more sensitive than anyone expects. But he scales new heights as Jinx, an ex-wrestler/once-estranged dad, struggling with addiction while trying to support his daughter in Margo's Got Money Troubles.— Eric Deggans
Outstanding writing for a comedy series: The Comeback
Lisa Kudrow in "The Comeback."
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Erin Simkin
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A new season comes around every 10 years (like the census!) to provide us a clear-eyed accounting (like the census!). This show was right about reality TV and streaming services; we ignore this season's dire, hilarious warnings about AI at our peril. — Glen Weldon
Outstanding limited or anthology series: DTF St. Louis
Jason Bateman and David Harbour in "DTF St. Louis."
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Tina Rowden
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It's tough to explain how a show about the mysterious death of a schlubby guy stuck in a love triangle became the year's most creatively quirky limited series. Somehow, star David Harbour turns this tale of middle-aged desperation into poignant, dark comedy. — Eric Deggans
And already announced
I'm happy to report that two of my picks already took home their Emmys in a ceremony last weekend formerly known as the Creative Arts Emmys. So congratulations to Betty Gilpin, who won outstanding guest actress in a comedy for Widow's Bay, and to The Muppet Show for outstanding writing for a variety special. (A third pick — Connor Storrie's game, goofball turn as SNL host — didn't end up winning outstanding guest actor in a comedy, but seeing as that award went to the late Rob Reiner for The Bear, I'm not complaining.) — Glen Weldon Copyright 2026 NPR
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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.
Published September 13, 2026 5:00 AM
Glendale, Calif., resident Tiffany Galaviz is one of seven finalists for the binational "México Canta" contest. The finals take place Sept. 13 in Mexico City
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Screenshot from mexicocanta.gob.mx
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Topline:
Tiffany Galaviz, from Glendale, is in the finals of México Canta, a singing competition in Mexico with contestants from both sides of the border.
Why it matters: The program has a social mission: to strengthen the bonds between those with Mexican heritage in the U.S. and Mexico.
The backstory: The contest was created last year by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Culture Secretary to counter the proliferation of songs that glorify drug dealing and violence.
What's next: The Sept. 13 México Canta finals will take place three days before Mexican Independence. The three winners will receive recording contracts.
Read on… about Galaviz and her road to the finals.
A Spanish-language TV singing competition from Mexico is doing something that mega-popular shows like The Voice are not. México Canta brings contestants from the U.S. and Mexico together to share the stage — and cultural ties.
“I am very connected to my Mexican side and those roots, [but] I've never really gotten to perform for such a big Mexican audience,” said Tiffany Galaviz, who performed on the show last month. She was born and raised in L.A. County and lives in Glendale.
The semifinals were held in L.A.’s Orpheum Theater on Aug. 23, and the winners were chosen by hundreds of thousands of people who cast votes online. Galaviz made it through, which means she’ll be one of seven finalists who will perform in the competition on Sunday, Sept. 13 at Mexico City’s prestigious Auditorio Nacional.
Three will be named winners and will receive recording contracts.
“It's a huge, huge venue [that’s] very important to the Mexican culture,” Galaviz said. “More than anything, I just feel really proud, especially making my family proud. Most of my family is from Sinaloa, and I spent a lot of summers there growing up."
Tiffany Galaviz is a mariachi musician in Southern California.
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Screenshot from México Canta video
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Studying mariachi since she was 8
The U.S. semi-finalists included performers from Arizona, Illinois and New York, while finalists from Mexico came from Morelos and Mexico City, among other places.
Galaviz is 24 and first started learning to play violin and sing in mariachi bands when she was 8. She plays violin and sings in mariachis across Southern California now and makes a living from it.
“I signed up for México Canta because I feel like I have everything that I need except the connections, the resources, the producers, the studios,” she said.
Created as an alternative to songs that glorify violence
The Voice and its Spanish-language counterpart La Voz create a platform for celebrity and the potential for stardom. But that’s less so for México Canta. The competition was created by Mexico’s Secretary of Culture to bring together people of Mexican heritage from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border around songwriting that’s an alternative to music that glorifies violence.
“We’ve strengthened fraternal ties between people in Mexico and the U.S.,” said Claudia Curiel de Icaza, Mexico’s culture secretary, when she presented the seven U.S. semi-finalists at a morning press conference on July 23. The seven semi-finalists from Mexico were presented a week later.
“Youth are front and center in the transformation of culture. [The contest has shown] that music has no borders, and it is furthering fellowship between Mexicans and Mexican Americans,” Curiel said.
Galaviz said that’s another important reason she signed up for México Canta.
She picked the corrido musical genre for the song she performed at the Orpheum. She’s had a love-hate relationship with corridos, she said, because many contemporary songs in the genre glorify drug dealing and violence.
Tiffany Galaviz performed at the México Canta semifinals at the Orpheum Theater in downtown L.A. on August 23, 2026.
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Screenshot from México Canta video.
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“I felt like I could make a positive impact, not just me but the rest of the contestants [too] by doing songs that are a little bit more positive in nature in their lyrics,” she said.
The song is about a breakup and begins with a description of a photo torn in two. It’s about a woman’s heartbreak, she said, “ but then it kind of shifts to an empowerment, you know, of being able to be by yourself as a woman.”
How to watch
México Canta's finale is tonight, Sept. 12, at 6 p.m. PDT
Galaviz began to get teary after finishing the song and talking to the presenter on stage.
“[I'm] proud of being able to represent Mexico and my roots. … It means a lot to have my family here, who’ve always supported me,” she said.
Days after making it past the semifinals, Galaviz had not picked the song she’d sing for the Sept. 13 finals. The performance carries weight for all contestants because it’ll be three days before Mexican Independence Day. Held in Mexico’s capital, the finals will take place in front of thousands of people, with an audience on TV, radio and online on both sides of the border.
Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published September 13, 2026 5:00 AM
Abigail Eun gave an interview during the COVID-19 pandemic that is included the new K-Town Archive.
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Courtesy of The K-Town Archive
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Topline:
The new digital K-Town Archive is preserving nearly 500 oral histories from Koreatown and nearby communities. The stories cover everything from the pandemic to elder care, from LGBTQIA life to traditional healing.
Why it matters: These are first-person accounts from one of L.A.’s most diverse immigrant communities. The archive makes them free and publicly accessible.
Why now: The K-Town Archive launched Wednesday as the first sister site of UCLA’s Archive of Healing. The first batch of interviews, focused on COVID-19, is already online.
The backstory: The project grew out of Koreatown Storytelling Program, which the Koreatown Youth and Community Center started in 2020. High schoolers are trained to interview community members and elders.
What's next: More interviews will be added in stages. Organizers also plan to expand the collection of photos and other archival materials.
Lauren Kim works alongside her father, Hanjik, at his traditional medicine clinic on the border of Koreatown and MacArthur Park. But it took an oral history interview for her to hear parts of his story for the first time.
Filmed speaking in Korean, he animatedly described how he came to traditional medicine.
“It’s just so precious to have that captured,” Kim said.
Now that interview, along with hundreds of others about life in and around Koreatown, is being gathered into the new K-Town Archive in a partnership with UCLA that also includes photographs and ephemera.
The archive grew out of Koreatown Youth and Community Center’s Koreatown Storytelling Program, which launched in 2020with plans to have young people interview elders.Then COVID-19 hit. Participants pivoted to delivering necessities for older residents such as masks and disinfectant.
They also started documenting what people were going through – in English, Korean, Spanish and Bangla. A current offshoot project involves interviewing people who live or work along the stretch of Third Street in Little Bangladesh.
“People hear Koreatown, they assume that it means that this is a program or an archive for Korean Americans,” said Katherine Yungmee Kim, director of the storytelling program. “But we are multiethnic. We want to represent the entire community that lives here.”
In the last several years, the teen interviewers have turned their attention to subjects including the garment industry, LGBTQIA life and food culture. As the collection of interviews grew, Kim began thinking about where they would ultimately live.
“I was always worried that we have all of these interviews and they’re just sitting on a hard drive,” she said.
A path toward a more permanent home began to emerge in 2024, when the storytelling program focused on traditional healing.
While researching Zapotec plant medicine, one high schooler came across UCLA’s Archive of Healing, a vast digital collection of knowledge about healing practices from cultures around the world.
Its materials stretch back more than 200 years and include published sources, folkloric fieldnotes and oral histories.
Kim asked UCLA’s David Shorter, a professor of World Arts and Cultures who’s overseen the Archive of Healing since 2012, to serve as an adviser to the project.
At first, the two had an idea to add Koreatown’s traditional healing interviews to the UCLA collection.
Then the idea got bigger.
Kim said she began seeing storytelling itself as a form of healing, especially as people described immigration, war, displacement and other difficult experiences.
The new K-Town Archive features recordings and photos from Koreatown and surrounding communities.
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UCLA Library Digital Collections
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“All of these stories are healing,” she said. “Why are we just narrowly looking at traditional healing modalities?”
The resulting K-Town Archive became the Archive of Healing’s first community-specific sister site. The two databases are connected, meaning material from Koreatown can also surface through searches of the larger Archive of Healing.
“What the K-Town Archive brings is real people’s stories in long form, so it's not just little snippets anymore,” Shorter said. “You actually get to hear a person, know that these are real humans, and talking from a contemporary moment.”
K-Town Archive
To share your story, go to K-Town Archive's website.
Kim said that it was important to populate the archives with as many voices as possible so visitors encounter more than “one historical perspective.”
The effort to create places for those conversations won’t be confined to the internet.
Lauren Kim in front of her father's apothecary cabinets. Their interviews are now preserved in the K-Town Archive.
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Courtesy of Lauren Kim
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KYCC is also setting up an art and wellness Center at Pico Boulevard and Western Avenue in a building that used to house a Dollar Tree.
Kim said the center will host Koreatown Storytelling Program events as well as arts and healing workshops. Public programming is expected to begin in January.
Lauren Kim’s family continues to stay connected to the storytelling project. She agreed tosit for an oral history of her own, talking about her childhood and connection to Koreatown.
That sparked new conversations within her family and sent them digging through old photographs, including images of her as a child posing in front of her father’s wooden apothecary cabinets.
For Kim, she was honored to contribute to the archive as “an example of what it means to work intergenerationally,” Kim said. “That felt special.”
