Whenever I’m asked where I’m from, I always say “Orlando” with pride. Orlando is not a small town by any means, and I know that nine times out of 10 the person that I am talking to knows at least the general location of the city I have always called home. Orlando is known for things like its tourist attractions, its fancy theme parks, its struggling professional basketball team, the Magic, and its up-and-coming soccer program, Orlando City. “So do you go to Disney World and Universal all the time?” is a question I get more often than not. It’s something that comes with the territory, a question I’ve been fielding since I was little. It’s word association. You think of Orlando, Florida and your mind immediately goes to Mickey Mouse and Cinderella’s castle.
For those of us who grew up in Orlando and are lucky enough to call this beautiful city our home, it is so much more than a tourist attraction. For me, it is the place my parents met and decided to start a family. It is where I went to preschool, elementary school, middle school, and high school. It is made up of the streets where I learned to ride a bike and drive a car. It is where I met my best friend, where I go to church, where I want to raise my own children someday.
After the events on June 12, 2016, when people hear "Orlando" they will not only think of the Mouse and Harry Potter World. When people hear Orlando they will think of the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States of America. They will think of 49 innocent victims who lost their lives at the hands of a terrorist. They will associate our beautiful city with a hate crime so horrific that it will never be forgotten, where 49 men and women went out on a Saturday night to have fun and be themselves, and they didn’t make it home.
It’s easy to distance yourself from an event like this when it happens in a different country, different state, or even different city. We think that it could never happen to us, to our town and to people we know. But it does. Terrorists come in to our beautiful homes and try to turn them into places of fear and chaos. If I know anything about Orlando, that won’t happen here. Like I said before, Orlando is defined by so much more than its tourist attractions, and it is so much more than the site of this terrible shooting. Orlando is not defined by the events of June 12 and the selfish, heartless actions of one man.
Instead, Orlando is defined by the thousands of people standing in line to donate blood to help those 53 victims who were injured and are being treated in the hospital. Orlando is defined by the food and drinks brought to police officers and first responders throughout the day after the attack. Orlando is defined by the over $2 million raised by Equality Florida, a Florida-based LGBTQ civil rights group, in less than 48 hours for the victims of the shooting and their families. That is the Orlando I know and love.
Our community has an uphill battle ahead of it, but I will continue to tell people I am from Orlando, Florida with pride and joy because Orlando is defined by love, and hate cannot win so long as we continue to show love for one another. #OrlandoStrong
