Ricardo Negron-Almodovar worked until the late hours of June 11, 2016 in Orlando, Fla. His plan was to go to Pulse, a gay nightclub he frequented.
Negron-Almodovar, 27, went to the club alone that night to enjoy a show on Latin Night and didn’t notice anything suspicious until after midnight.
“I was actually paying my check when noise was heard and my reaction was that it was part of the music,” said Negron-Almodovar, who is from Puerto Rico but currently resides in Orlando. “But then it was evident that it wasn’t. People started screaming and throwing themselves at the floor, which I did too.”
The sounds Negron-Almodovar heard were gunshots.
“There was a brief pause in the shooting and I was close to a door that led to the patio,” he said. “So people that were near me started running out the door and I ran out too.”
While Negron-Almodovar survived that night, the mass shooting from a lone suspect left 49 dead and 53 injured.
Negron-Almodovar was in attendance at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change Conference, a national traveling conference dedicated to LGBT equality, at the Philadelphia Downtown Marriott last weekend. He was among several individuals on the “Community Strength: Healing in the Aftermath of the Pulse Tragedy” panel, which was part of the conference’s Latinx Institute.
“At first I didn’t really talk about it but when I started doing this work, I was way more vocal about it,” he said about sharing his story.
Prior to the Pulse shooting, Negron-Almodovar conducted voter canvassing with the Hispanic Federation, a Latino membership organization. Several weeks after the incident, his role expanded when the organization founded Proyecto Somos Orlando, a campaign dedicated to providing mental-health services, case management and other resources for Pulse victims and their families.
Through his involvement with Proyecto Somos Orlando, Negron-Almodovar speaks about his experiences as a survivor.
While at Creating Change, he said he learned from others during his first time in an intersectional space at the Latinx Institute.
“There were so many stories to share and to learn from. It was overwhelming but in a good sense. Everybody is talking about their struggles. You can learn from those struggles.”
One of the issues discussed in the institute was about visibility in the Latinx community. Negron-Almodovar said there are not many Latinx people in positions of power.
“The representation of Latinx [people] in elected positions [compared] to how big the population is, it’s nothing,” he said.
In addition to speaking out about his story, Negron-Almodovar said he is now more open about his LGBT identity. He indicated the rainbow bracelet he wore on his wrist with a chuckle.
“I was out but I was more conservative about how I expressed my relationship,” Negron-Almodovar said.
Prior to Pulse, he said, he didn’t show public displays of affection with his former boyfriend outside of gay spaces such as in bars and clubs.
“People like myself — gay and super-proud with their loved ones — died,” he said. “So why hide it? Now I’m even more proud about it. Those people [who died] are not able to enjoy what they were enjoying and I still can. I might as well just be in your face about it.”
What happened at Pulse, he said, changed his perspective about being an LGBT person.
“Now I understand what it’s like to have pride.”
To learn more about Proyecto Somos Orlando or to donate, visit hispanicfederation.org/SomosOrlando.