Students gathered at the UNM Duck Pond on Thursday night to support Orlando with love and candlelight following the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
Rainbow flags adorned the west end of Zimmerman Library, luminarias were placed around the Duck Pond and pictures of all 49 victims were displayed by audience members, as the slogan “We Stand Together” united LGBTQ community members and supporters.
UNM students were eager to stand in solidarity with Orlando, as they joined grieving communities around the country affected by the largest mass shooting in our nation’s history. Albuquerque held its own vigil last Sunday night, the same day as the shooting.
The vigil was hosted by the UNM LGBTQ Resource Center, a student-founded organization dedicated to caring for UNM’s LGBTQ community.
Alma Rosa Silva-Bañuelos, director of the LGBTQ Resource Center, welcomed the UNM community by acknowledging the importance of community and emotional support for both victims and UNM students in mourning.
“Look around,” Silva-Bañuelos said. “This is your family and community. We were dancing in bars that night too. Our bars are not just bars. These bars are our home, our safety, a place where we can find love.”
Silva-Bañuelos said the LGBTQ Resource Center is dedicated to all UNM students to help them cope with any emotion.
Silva-Bañuelos finished by telling supporters, “It is up to us to respond. Change is coming.”
UNM officials, students and members of the Red Nation pledged their support to Orlando and the UNM student body.
Josephine “Jozi” De Leon, vice president of UNM’s Division for Equity and Inclusion, advised UNM students that it is time for change and this event “has to have a profound impact.”
De Leon said that phobia divides the populace, and inclusion is critical to the LGBTQ movement.
“It is upsetting to see our brothers and sisters in pain. But we can certainly reach out to our brothers and sisters. And we stand with our LGBTQ community,” De Leon said.
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UNM officials including Associate Provost for Faculty Development Virginia Scharff; Vice President for Student Affairs Eliseo Torres; Executive Vice Chancellor of UNM Hospitals Richard Larson; Dean of Students Natasha Torrez and UNM President Robert Frank showed support for Orlando and the community with details on how UNM students and faculty can help aid Orlando families and victims.
Scharff said the attack in Orlando was an attack on Latino, LGBTQ and Muslim communities. Scharff told vigil participants that UNM should strive for inclusivity for all groups.
Scharff reflected on a bracelet she started wearing a week before the event in Florida that displayed the words “All Means All” and told participants that those words should be sacred to all.
Torres and Torrez focused on using Orlando to direct concerns about gun laws and minority marginalization.
UNM students were encouraged to reach out to each other, love one another and use the crime in Orlando as a call to action.
“We can write to legislators, use social media and let everyone know we do not stand for violence and open gun laws. We offer our condolences to the beautiful people. Let’s show the rest of the world we can be inclusive,” said Torrez.
Larson appealed to the UNM community on America’s ideals, saying that it was founded on tolerance and freedom of expression and events in Orlando reminded us how important those rights are.
“These actions remind us that there is a difference between good and evil,” Larson said, “We can come together to prevent further acts of violence.”
At the end of the vigil, audience members holding large images of each victim read the victims’ names as audience members recited “present” after each name was read.
The images illuminated by candlelight were then walked through the crowd to the edge of the Duck Pond for a moment of silence and reflection.
