When Brandon Tsay saw the gunman, he knew he had to act.
The 26-year-old Asian American man was helping at his family’s dancing ballroom in Alhambra when Huu Can Tran, who had just killed 11 people in another ballroom in Monterey Park, entered the lobby with a gun.
“A lot of my memories and emotions came to me,” Tsay said about the night of Jan. 23, 2023. He thought about the people who regularly dance at the ballroom and how they have been so kind and supportive of him and his family. “This gave me a sense of strength to push forward.”
Tsay then wrestled with Tran for several minutes, eventually disarming him and preventing another Lunar New Year massacre. After the video footage of Tsay fighting the gunman went public, he became a national hero overnight.
Almost two months later, Tsay, the computer coder who loves to play League of Legends and occasionally helps at the family ballroom ticket office, is no longer the same Asian shy boy from Southern California. He has been honored at multiple prominent events, including a standing ovation at President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech.
To help support the community’s healing and rebuilding, the Asian Pacific Community Fund also started a “Brandon Tsay Hero Fund” to honor him.
A Warm Welcome in SF
In San Francisco on Thursday evening, Tsay received a warm welcome and constant applause as he gave an inspiring speech and shared his personal story with the crowd.
Hosted by the nonprofit Stand With Asian Americans, the event was held to acknowledge the two-year anniversary of the Atlanta spa shooting, where six of the eight people killed were Asian women.
As a son of Taiwanese immigrants, Tsay lost his mom to cancer in 2017, which changed him tremendously.
“I thought about how this woman focused 18 years of her life on me,” he said. “I thought to myself, I need to…
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