Hate Crimes

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 Ileto was covering a shift for another co-worker 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
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 working American. We decided to build a mailbox with a letter attached to it. Joseph Ileto 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 Ileto 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 Ileto has to the Asian American
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 norm 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 towards 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