INQUIRER Global Nation

BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK?(UPDATE) Their pursuit of the American dream collided with the nightmare of a mass killing.

In an all-American city that had seen better days, they were true strangers from lands as far apart as the Philippines and the former Soviet republics.

The American Civic Association was the place they turned to for help navigating their journey. But their bridge to a better life is now a monument of immigrant sorrow, the site of Friday?s shooting rampage that killed 14 people?among them Dolores Carbonilas Yigal, from Cebu province, who had been living in the United States for two years.

The dead included the gunman himself, Vietnamese immigrant Jiverly Wong, 41, who killed himself on hearing the approach of police sirens, officials said.

The center is a stepping stone for recent arrivals, many of them with poor or nonexistent English-speaking skills.

Yigal was learning English there as she dreamed of getting a job working with children, her American husband Omri Yigal said.

?She wanted to learn English so she could find work,? he said.

Police arrived at the Yigals? house on Saturday night to tell him his wife was among the dead.

?They said she probably went quickly so she didn?t suffer, I pray,? Omri said in a shaky voice.

DFA condoles

Ed Malaya, spokesperson of the Philippines? Department of Foreign Affairs, said the Philippine Consulate General had sent an official to Binghamton to provide assistance to the Yigal family.

?The DFA extends its condolences to the bereaved family,? Malaya said.

Binghamton has always been a lure for immigrants. More than 7,100 immigrants, most of them Asians, have settled in Binghamton since 2005, according to city statistics. They are a cosmopolitan mix of Kurds, Chinese, Filipinos, Africans, Iraqis?but only a fraction of the city?s predominantly white population of 43,000.

Police Chief Joseph Zikuski said most of the dead had multiple bullet wounds.

It was the nation?s worst mass shooting since the April 16, 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, considered the bloodiest killing spree in modern US history. On that day, a South Korean student majoring in English shot dead 32 people before aiming the gun at himself.

The bespectacled Wong, who had taken classes at the center to improve the broken English that had left him feeling isolated, had burst in wearing body armor and shooting two handguns?a 9 mm and a .45 caliber.

The dead included four Chinese nationals, Beijing state media said.

Receptionist was a hero

Receptionist Shirley DeLucia, 61, played dead, then called police despite her injuries and stayed on the line while the gunman remained in the building.

?She?s a hero in her own right,? Zikuski said.

DeLucia remained in critical condition. Police said she and three other hospitalized victims were all expected to survive.

Con Thi Thach, 53, an immigrant from Vietnam, had scuttled in late for her 10 a.m. English class, where other immigrants were taking turns trying to discern the meaning of the phrase ?in the black.? Some thought it might relate to the black market, others were puzzled at why a color would have any other meaning.

?Pop, pop, pop,? Thach said, reenacting the terrifying events.

It remains unclear why Wong strapped on a bulletproof vest, barged in on the class and opened fire.

Perhaps most implausible of all is that the killer was one of their own?as well as a son of one of their own.

The gunman?s father was well known in the area through his work years ago at the now-defunct World Relief Organization, helping new arrivals. He would hook people up with a doctor, help them get on food stamps.

Violent homelands

The volunteer-based civic group was founded in 1939 by 11 immigrants. It helps roughly 60 to 100 people a day with finding housing, food, clothing, medical care and jobs, as well as offering English classes, interpreters, personal counseling and more.

Some of the victims left violent homelands only to be slain in a quiet, industrial city at the confluence of two rivers.

Layla Khalil, an Iraqi woman in her 50s, came to the United States after surviving three car bombings in Iraq, said Imam Kasim Kopuz. ?To think that would happen here,? Kopuz said.

She had three children, including a son who is a doctoral student at the Sorbonne in Paris and a daughter who is a Fulbright scholar.

Zikuski said Wong, who used the alias Jiverly Voong, had apparently prepared for a gun battle but changed course and turned the gun on himself when he heard sirens approaching.

?He had a lot of ammunition on him, so thank God before more lives were lost, he decided to do that,? the chief said.

Hoping for miracle

Zikuski said the actions of Wong, an ethnic Chinese who arrived from Vietnam in the early 1990s, should have been no surprise to the man?s family.

?He felt that he was degraded because of his inability to speak English and he was upset about that,? Zikuski said.

David Ackley, who had worked with him at a local vacuum cleaner factory, said Wong would often say on Mondays that he had spent the weekend on the firing range, and once joked about shooting politicians.

Without uttering a word, Wong shot the center?s two receptionists, killing one and sending DeLucia under her desk, where she dialed 911 on a cell phone.

Then Wong entered the nearest classroom and resumed shooting.

Lubomyr Zobniw was still waiting Saturday to hear information about his wife, Maria, who came to the United States from Ukraine as a child and was a part-time caseworker at the Civic Association.

?I?m still hoping for a miracle or something,? he said.

No terrorist link

President Barack Obama, speaking in Strasbourg on the sidelines of a NATO summit, said: ?I am heartbroken for the families who survived this tragedy.

?It just underscores the degree to which in each of our countries, we have to guard against the kind of senseless violence that tragedy represents.?

Friday?s carnage is the latest incident to rock small-town America, where many fiercely defend the legal right to bear firearms, but which is also being hit by the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

A US official said on condition of anonymity that the FBI had uncovered no evidence linking the gunman in the New York attack to terrorists.