Jose Romero came to America two years ago to work on a California farm with other immigrants from Mexico and China, and he was supposed to find protection there.
Romero was shot dead by a shooter on Monday near Half Moon Bay, close to San Francisco, along with six other farm employees. The shooting, which occurred just two days after another shooter opened fire at a ballroom in Monterey Park, an Asian American community south of Los Angeles, was shocking even in a country all too acquainted with gun violence.
The back-to-back shootings, which claimed a total of 18 lives, shook two tight-knit towns that had attracted immigrants looking for work.
Romero’s cousin, Jose Juarez, spoke quietly and sourly on Tuesday as he took a break from working as a chef at a Mexican taqueria in a strip mall in Half Moon Bay. “You look to improve your life and then you wind up with this,” he said.
Huu Can Tran, 72, frequently attended the Monterey Park dancing class, while Chunli Zhao, 66, worked on a Half Moon Bay farm, according to police. This only served to increase the sense of fear felt by immigrant populations who have been the subject of racist rhetoric and violence in the United States.
According to data gathered by the University of California, Los Angeles and shared with Reuters, 32% of Asian immigrants and 23% of Latino immigrants in California say they are “very worried” about becoming victims of gun violence in their adopted home – three times the level of fear reported by people born in the United States.
Antonio Perez, who moved from Mexico to Half Moon Bay in 1983, said he feels torn between gun violence in the US and cartel violence in his native country.
Perez shook his head and remarked, “We never anticipated this sort of severity here. Such a disaster.
Guns are available everywhere in America, according to 36-year-old Chinese-born Frank Hio. “This place is unsafe.”
People in the flourishing neighborhood known for its Asian shops and eateries expressed shock that the shooter was a local.
Rolando Favis, 72, who immigrated to the United States from the Philippines 38 years ago, claimed that both the shooters and the victims were Asian.
However, many said that they had grown more concerned for their safety in recent years as a result of the spike in Asian-related hate crimes following the pandemic and then-President Donald Trump’s comments accusing China.
Following the outbreak, Asian Americans bought more firearms. According to a University of Michigan research, a third of gun owners claimed they carried their weapons more frequently as a result of the anti-Asian attacks, and a second third indicated they kept their firearms loaded or unlocked at home.
Wesley Chan, a store employee at Euro Arms Inc. in Alhambra, three miles (5 km) from the location of the Monterey Park shooting, reported that gun sales had increased since the outbreak, especially among Asian Americans living nearby.
Everyone, he continued, “was afraid and wanted to defend themselves.”
According to the UCLA study’s principal author, Ninez Ponce, 9.3% of Asian immigrants live in California with guns, compared to 5.6% of Latino immigrants and 12% of white immigrants. A gun is kept at home by 17.6% of Californians overall, regardless of background.
