Hate crimes have increased over the past few years. According to Deepa Bharath’s article, the hate crimes in the Los Angeles County has leaped to 24 percent since 2015. Hate crimes are defined as a criminal action acted upon on a specific person from a protected class. These acts can be either an assault or vandalism or the use of a dangerous weapon which causes bodily harm to an individual. On August 10, 1999, Joseph Ileto, a Filipino-American was murdered cold-heartedly by a white supremacist. Joseph lleto was covering a shift for another co- orker consequently, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Sadly, this isn’t the first time an innocent person was murdered because of someone’s bias towards a specific member of a protected class. Others from The Asian American community have faced horrible deaths as Joseph lleto did, though his death helped push legislation for hate crimes, it hasn’t put a stop to it. Unfortunately, as stated in the beginning, hate crimes have increased and recently even more since the past election. Asian Americans Advanced justice and many other community groups came together to fight and bring peace to Joseph lleto’s family.
Though his family tried to educate the community about making hate crimes visible, sadly, these victims don’t get as much attention as they should. This act illustrates the reality that minorities are still perceived as the stereotype foreigners and that they are not truly accepted here. Therefore, it questions the true meaning of American identities, such as whether you must be from the acceptable race in order to be classified as an American or has times changed as we tend to believe. Our group built a monument to honor a hard orking American.
We decided to build a mailbox with a letter attached to it. Joseph lleto worked for the U. S. post office at the Chino Hills location. Therefore, the mailbox represents his occupation and the last act he performed before his horrible death. The letter represents the letter the perpetrator gave Joseph lleto before he killed him. Our monument was made from scratch and the work was disturbed equally. Thus in this essay, I will discuss the horrible loss and the importance of the event, the process of the monument, and lastly, the significance
Joseph lleto has to the Asian American History. Joseph lleto had a significant impact on the American Society. Many Asian- American hate crimes were heard of since it wasn’t discussed in the media. When he was murdered, his family took the courage and although they know they may be harassed and threatened, decided to educate and bring awareness to the American society of the discriminations that occur towards the Asian American society. Our group chose to commemorate Joseph lleto because of the following actions are taken from his family to make sure his death wasn’t in vain.
This is an act of bravery and Joseph lleto should be honored for the memorable person he was. At the age of 14, Joseph and his family moved from the Philippines to Los Angeles. Joseph lleto was considered a moral man in respect to his family and even played a significant role to his household at an early age since his father’s death. He had three younger siblings, one brother and two twin sisters who admired and respected him. At an early age, Joseph learned to play chess by his father and even played competitively.
He became an avid chess player and had been featured several imes in magazines and newspapers for his achievements. He is described as an honest and modest man who put others needs first then his. He was a dedicated uncle to his brother’s son and to his family. Therefore, to his family, he was known as Jojo or Kuya a Filipino term which refers to respect to the elder. At the age of 39, Joseph was in a pretty good state in his life, he was working at the United States Postal office in the Chino Hills location as a mailman and was attending California Polytechnic at Pomona for an Engineering degree.
On August 10, 1999, Joseph Ileto was gunned down along his work route by a white supremacist named Buford O. Furrow. The perpetrator approached lleto while he was returning to his vehicle and asked Joseph to mail a letter for him. As Joseph agreed and took the letter, the perpetrator took out his gun and fired multiple shots. Joseph was shot several times in the back and once on the head. However, Furrow had fired shots earlier at a playground full of children at the Jewish community center. The murder of Joseph lleto shocked the Unite States and the Asian Pacific American community.
His death shed light to the requent hate crimes that occur in this society. Across the country, various ethnic organizations came together and hold vigils to mourn the loss of an innocent colored man. This hate crime is significant as it occurred during other multiple hate crime incidents, therefore, many people as well as his family united and attended rallies to make sure these hate crime victims became visible. Due to the frequency of hate crimes, the hate-crime prevention act of 199 was passed to bring awareness to the hate crimes committed and provide federal resources.
Hate crimes against the Asian-American community have numerously increased over the past years. Therefore, the hate crime committed against Joseph Ileto entails to the larger picture of Asian American History. The Asian-American community has faced inequality since the beginning of time. Throughout history, many legal actions here in the United States were taken to promote discrimination and segregation upon the Asian-American races. For instance, the legislation that was passed discriminated against non-white people which denied United States citizenship because they were not part of the orm race.
Though these legislations were outlawed, Asian American still face discrimination till today and consequently, as in Joseph’s case, it can lead to a hate crime. Therefore, many Asian American decedents face difficult times because of others bias towards minorities. People also hold stereotype beliefs of individuals because of their national background. For example, classifying an Asian American as a foreigner because of his or her skin color without knowing their citizenship status. Stereotypes are harmful because it can distort a person’s beliefs owards a group without knowing if these stereotype characteristics apply to everyone.
Unfortunately, Asian- Americans are still facing the occurrence of hate crimes at this time because of the current president prejudices. The monument designed was inspired by Joseph lleto’s last act before he was murdered. As stated earlier, Joseph lleto was a mailman at the United States Postal office in the Chino Hills location. Our group decided to build a mailbox and a letter. The mailbox represents Josephs occupation and his last act such as delivering mail before he was murdered. The meaning of the etter signifies the letter the perpetrator asked Joseph to mail for him before he killed him.
In front of the letter, Joseph’s name is written in red which signifies the letter was for him metaphorically and the red ink indicates the blood loss. At first, I suggested that we build a postal office since the president at that time announced, the postal office of Chino Hills would be named The Joseph lleto Postal office in memory of the dedicated former mailman Joseph lleto. However, my teammates didn’t seem too keen on the idea of building a postal office since we all don’t have any art experience.
Then one of my other teammates suggested to do a poster because he came upon several Joseph Ileto posters which portrayed the importance of the event however, our professor strongly suggested we change our monument designed. Therefore, I suggested my previous sketch but instead of doing a postal office we would do a mailbox and a letter to symbolize the murder. We had several differences as one of our members couldn’t suggest what to do and went along with the flow. Therefore, the selection of the monument wasn’t necessarily democratic since not everyone voted or provided an alternative plan.
