At this time of the year when families feel the weight of the loss of loved ones in the rawest of pain the City held a press conference addressing future plans for the Pulse site and repeated one of the biggest mistakes made by the One Pulse Foundation; the conference was held in English and offered no interpretation for the non-English speaking families and survivors of the tragedy. Interpreters. Something so simple to provide and so accessible but with the same thoughtlessness of the One Pulse Foundation interpreters were omitted when most needed. How can you trust and place faith in the new entity that has taken over the process of building a Memorial when it does not make a genuine effort in the simple things to be inclusive of the Hispanic community that was disproportionately impacted by the events of 6-12-2016.
Many of the families were on line to watch the press conference and came away disappointed and questioning in a group chat if they had understood Mayor Dyer’s statement about having to identify survivors and family members. They are aware of the fact that the City has Spanish-speaking employees and in fact has a representative assigned to the Hispanic, Puerto Rican and LGBTQ+ community. Why was he not present at this conference to at the very least, offer a visible presence? How is it possible that they still don’t reach out to us in our language? How can they say they don’t know who we are and now have to identify us when they were the ones who created an assistance center that vetted us? Are they just going to treat us the same way One Pulse did? Are they just speaking to one or two families or survivors who don’t represent all of us?
It is insulting and offensive to find the City Beautiful can behave in such an ugly way and it is our sincere hope that today was a mistake in a rush to put on a press conference and not a sign of things to come.
At the request of some of the victims families and some of the survivors of Pulse,
[Signatories Redacted for Privacy]
You can view the press conference below:
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