This past weekend, the Gilroy Garlic Festival returned for the first time since 2019. For many, it’s a cause for celebration — a beloved tradition revived, a symbol of community strength and resilience. But for families like ours, it’s not a celebration. It’s a painful reminder of what we lost.
The last time the festival was held, our Keyla was there — and she never came home.
Keyla was just 13 years old. She had been enjoying ice cream with her family on a summer day when a gunman opened fire. In mere seconds, three innocent lives were taken and 17 others were wounded.
Our Keyla was one of them.
Also killed were Stephen Romero, a joyful 6-year-old boy, and Trevor Irby, a 25-year-old recent college graduate visiting the festival with his girlfriend.
Three beautiful lives stolen. Three families changed forever.
Keyla was kind, gentle and generous. She always looked out for others. Even though she faced bullying at school, she never let it harden her heart. She stayed true to who she was — loving, resilient and full of hope. She loved animals, technology, family dinners and all the small, quiet things that made her smile. She had so many questions about the world and so many dreams for her future.
She should still be here.
Since that day, we have lived with a grief that does not fade. It shows up on birthdays, holidays and in the quiet moments when her absence feels loudest. And every time another mass shooting makes the news — and there have been far too many — it reopens the wound. The fear, the helplessness, the heartbreak and the anger that so little has changed.
Now, as the Garlic Festival returns, the media coverage is filled with joy. There are stories about garlic fries, musical acts and local vendors. Some articles don’t even mention the 2019 shooting. Others reduce it to a single sentence: “Three people were killed, and 17 were injured.”
But Keyla, Stephen and Trevor weren’t just “three people.”
They were children. They were loved. They had names, dreams and futures. When we forget to say their names, we forget who they were. And we risk forgetting what was lost.
We know how much this festival means to Gilroy. We understand the importance of gathering, of healing and of celebrating community. But true healing cannot happen without remembrance. You cannot honor the spirit of this town while overlooking the families still carrying the weight of that day.
We’re not asking for pity. We’re asking you to remember. To see Keyla, Stephen and Trevor not as a footnote in history, but as lives that mattered. Lives that were stolen. All we want is for their absence to mean something.
What happened in Gilroy wasn’t random. The shooter was driven by hate — by white supremacist ideology aimed at immigrants, Latinos and anyone seen as “other.” That hate is real, and when it’s ignored, it becomes violence.
Keyla carried her identity with pride. She was a young Latina girl filled with light, love and limitless potential. She treasured her family, her community and the future she was excited to grow into.
If you attended the festival this year, we ask you: please take a moment. Say their names.
Keyla. Stephen. Trevor.
Carry their memory with you — not as a shadow, but as a light. A reminder that behind the headlines were real people whose lives mattered deeply. Their stories are part of Gilroy’s story, and they always will be.
As we honor them, we stand in love and solidarity with every family who has experienced the pain of senseless violence. To every parent, sibling, child and friend who has lost someone too soon — we see you, we mourn with you and we walk beside you.
We miss Keyla every single day. Her absence is an ache we will always carry. But we move forward in her name — with truth, with love and with a promise to fight for a safer, kinder world.
We stand against hate.
We stand for remembrance.
We stand for change.
A love letter from the family of Keyla Salazar.
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