Members demonstrate that the best way to bridge racial and cultural divides is to celebrate together with pride.

Boricuan solidarity and pride was on full display at the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City on June 9, billed as America’s largest cultural celebration.

Michael Velez, an 1199 Paralegal at the Legal Aid Society, said: “I’m super proud to be a Puerto Rican, a Nuyorican, and I just had to come out today to celebrate the parade, but also Legal Aid and 1199, the biggest healthcare union in the nation.” Velez was joined by fellow Paralegal Bryant Bell and Jose Sotomayor, an 1199 PCA at Callen-Lorde health center.

Dianne Dixon, an 1199 Patient Service Associate at Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn, said she attended the parade in support of her brothers and sisters because “we are one people, and we want to come together and be unified.”

“Today, we are celebrating life!” she said.

In Buffalo on June 2, Union members also marched proudly alongside the Justice Bloc to lift up the LGBTQIA+ community and kicking off Pride month.

“I had a fantastic time,” Delores Lanier, Equipment Coordinator at Kaleida Health’s Buffalo General Medical Center said. “It was my first time participating in the parade and it was phenomenal.”

On June 30, New York City 1199ers joined “The March,” which began in 1970 on the first anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising—the demonstration that sparked the modern gay rights movement. Sporting the same banner declaring, “All Welcome Here,” 1199ers came together to uplift marginalized voices and advocate for working conditions and contracts that protect our LGBTQIA+ healthcare workers.

Members in Rochester, NY, also took part in their city’s annual Pride Parade on July 20.