NBC News elevated the Orlando massacre’s disproportionate impact on the Latino community in a June 13 report. As noted by NBC News, it was Latin Night at the club when the attack occurred, and “most of the victims were Latino.”  

On June 12, a gunman wielding an assault weapon killed 49 people and injured 53 others at a Orlando, FL, gay nightclub. In NBC News' report highlighting the impact the attack had on the Latino community, the network elevated Hispanic voices, interviewing LGBT Latinos, survivors of the attacks, and friends and family members of the victims, providing necessary visibility to a community that goes often underrepresented in the media.

NBC News provided a platform for Latinos to explain why the gay club “was a safe space” for LGBT Hispanics -- “because it was Latin Night, where you could finally hold someone's hand, or to kiss them while feeling like the majority and unoppressed."

It was Latin Night at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. And as news unfolded of the nation's worst mass shooting, it quickly became evident that most of the victims were Latino.

“De verdad que no tengo palabras - truly I have no words,” said Carlos Batán to Telemundo reporter Rogelio Mora Tagle. Batan choked up as he remembered how his best friend, whom he didn't name out of respect until more news had come out, was the first person he had met in Orlando when he moved from Puerto Rico four years ago. Through tears, Batán said his friend had gone to Pulse for a night of dancing, only to fall victim to the violent shooting. “I can't believe the days in which we're living, there is no respect for human life.”

Carlos Guillermo Smith, who is running for the Florida state Legislature and is the government affairs manager for Equality Florida, said as soon as he learned of the shootings Sunday morning he reached out to friends to make sure they were safe because he knew people he knows would be there. Smith, who would be the first openly gay Latino in the Florida legislature and is of Peruvian descent, said he was getting calls from friends and family who were checking on him.

[...]

While violence against the LGBTQ community is something he has dealt with through Equality Florida, the civil rights group for which he works, the tragedy has made discrimination and gun violence more real, he said.

“It's more real in every way, not only is Orlando our home, but this is our people. I see the Latino families in person here on the ground and on TV embracing each other, holding each other tight and I see my own family,” Smith said.

[...]

For many of the area's Latinos, the best thing to do was to try to help.

Franco Camborda, a 19-year-old student at the University of Southern Florida, said people were waiting in blood donation lines for as many as eight hours. Because the blood donation centers were so busy, Camborda said he and his friends left their phone numbers and will be ready to donate as soon as they get a call.



“When I heard it was Latinos, it hit me hard because we are already a minority —Pulse was a safe space, especially because it was Latin Night, where you could finally hold someone's hand, or to kiss them while feeling like the majority and unoppressed.”