"By the afternoon I had a huge headache, I was drowsy, and my temper was through the roof."
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By Luis Sierra
A report earlier this year in Los Angeles County shows cases of AIDS in the Latino community have outpaced those in any other ethnic group, putting the percentage of Latinos living with AIDS in Los Angeles well above the national percentage. Youth Radio’s Luis Sierra has worked on the frontlines as a HIV and AIDS educator for seven years in various communities around the county. He isn’t surprised to see the report cites a major cause of the increase as lack of information and communication about HIV/AIDS. (September 23 on Latino USA)
When I was sixteen, I got an after school job as peer health educator. I taught HIV and STD prevention workshops for youth my age. It was hard enough convincing other teens that I knew something about AIDS that they didn’t. But when I would tell them the reality- that once you have the virus you could never get rid of it-they would look at me in disbelief, and say –“But I don't really know anybody who has it.”
The conversations that circulated among teens were mostly rumors. Like girls washing themselves with Coca-Cola after sex would prevent them from getting pregnant or catching STD’s, or that having sex with two condoms would give them double the protection.
Even among my group of peer educator friends, we would have a hard time finding ways of undoing our own years of social conditioning. We’d share stories about who did what with whom and how they’d neglected to use protection. We weren’t always practicing what we were preaching.
Fast forward seven years – and the fears that got me into this kind of work have come true.
L.A. County reports that in 2003, Latinos jumped from being 28% of people living with the virus in the county up to 37%. After all this time, I find it amazing that the most difficult part of my job is still sparking a conversation around HIV and AIDS.
In the Latino community, many view HIV and AIDS as a disease of homosexuality, and therefore, of corruption and immorality. Many men deny they are gay. This “macho” attitude of self-directed homophobia means that men who are having sex with other men often hide their activity from their female partners or wives. Protection is not a common practice.
More than any other ethnic group, Latinos aren’t getting tested for HIV until it’s too late - either because of the social taboos or because so many Latinos don’t have health insurance.
I remember when I first began to teach HIV/AIDS prevention workshops. My father felt so embarrassed he never told his friends what I did at my after-school job. He didn’t even want me to speak about it to the family. Luckily, I’m not infected, but if the virus remains too taboo for our community to mention, the new face of HIV/AIDS in L.A. County will look and sound like me.
And unfortunately, until we begin to have an open dialogue amongst ourselves, our entire community will be a casualty.
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