Franklin Vides says he won't let fear stop him from living his life in the wake of the Orlando nightclub shootings.
The Atlanta landscape and interior designer is a gay Latino — and an immigrant — like many of the people who frequented Pulse, the club Omar Mateen attacked. Early Sunday morning, Mateen entered Pulse with a semiautomatic handgun and assault rifle and opened fire, killing 49 people and wounded 53.
“I will always be careful,” Vides said. “Next time you step in a club or a bar, you have to look at where are all your exits.”
Vides emigrated a year ago to the U.S. from El Salvador, a Central American nation where he said machismo makes it difficult for gay people. He obtained his green card last year after marrying a Georgian who served as a Peace Corps volunteer in El Salvador.
“My impression was: ‘Now, this is going to be worse for us as an immigrant people and gay people,’” he said of the shootings in Orlando. “I thought we here in America stopped being the target. I know that in El Salvador we are still the target. When you talk about gay pride in El Salvador, it is like talking about gay pride in the 1980s in the States.”
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