Remembering Joseph Ileto
Ten years ago today, Joseph Ileto was murdered by a white supremacist while delivering mail in Southern California.
Sometimes, it’s hard to trace the impact of any monumental event on one person’s life. But it may be easier for me in this case, for reasons I’ll explain here.
Ten years ago today I was in my final week as an intern at the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA) in Washington, DC. In general, that experience was life-changing for many reasons, but to put it very succinctly, I learned we are never alone. (If you want to talk more about this, holla via email.)
So on Tuesday of my final week in the office, we were kind of just goofing off all day. (I honestly remember it was a Tuesday, without having to look it up.) And I remember hearing the news that a Filipino American postal worker had been shot and killed as part of a racist shooting rampage. It definitely shattered the loose vibe we were cultivating there, and as we learned more details, I prepared myself to draft the agency’s public response. (Of the six interns in the office that summer, I had established my niche as the one who wanted to write press releases and such.)
And as I sat at the computer, facing something so much more serious than I wanted to be facing at that time, a sense of purpose overcame me. Over the previous 9 weeks, I had felt so supported and loved by people I met from across the country, from different campuses that I had never been to; I was new to this world, I had no plans beyond that summer, whereas a lot of other interns were mapping out law school or their careers. I was – for lack of a better phrase – a scrub compared to all of them. And during this time, I had learned that no matter how unsupported or beaten down I felt, there was always going to be hundreds of others feeling that same way, fighting the same fights. And that even if I never met them, they were my support. I would never have to meet them, I’d just have to believe they existed.
And so typing out the date on that blank Microsoft Word document, I felt that I could return some of that love and support to Joseph and his family. This was bound to be my final real work of the summer, I should put everything I had into it. And I truly did, I can relive that moment like it happened yesterday. I remember typing the gunman’s name (which I still remember but won’t type here) and thinking his name sounded like a white supremacist’s name, all awkward consonant sounds and long vowels jumping on each other. The day is still one of the most vivid days in my memory.
One thing stays with me more than anything. Joseph Ileto was killed while filling in for a friend on a mail route that wasn’t even his, making him the most tragic example of “wrong place, wrong time” – but his mother refuted that, saying that he was helping a friend, he was in the right place at the right time. It was the gunman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time – with the wrong set of morals.
Two summers later, I had joined OCA as full-time staff. And if I thought I was a rookie as an intern, I was 
way more clueless as a staffer at a national civil rights organization inside the Beltway. And I learned a lot about myself during my time there, I can’t front. But that summer of 2001, I met Joseph’s brother Ismael Ileto in Seattle.
I’ll never forget, really, how generous he was to me. He had been selling shirts with his brother’s face on the front to raise money for the family’s foundation to teach about peace and caring and giving. I told him a little bit about what his brother’s murder had meant for me, and he just gave me a shirt. I told him, “but I don’t have any money.” He said: Just wear it where people will see it, that’s what matters to us.
So I did all I could think to do, which meant wearing it on stage. I wore it in the photos that were used in the
I’m sure Ismael doesn’t remember me. But I’ll always remember him, his family, his brother who I never met, but feel like was my own.
Rest in power Joseph Ileto. Ten years today.