Images/Imgenes; 2124; Hispanics & Aids

Next, on images images, Achiller is loose in the Latino community. It's called El Sida. Saludos, welcome to images images, I'm Miguel Perez. The AIDS epidemic, El Sida, as we know it in the Hispanic community, is killing Latinos at an alarming rate. But at the time when the spread of AIDS openly discussed throughout the country, when sex education seems to be the only way to fight this epidemic in the Latino community, AIDS is still a taboo subject. Few are willing to talk about it because El Sida also involves other subjects that are still taboo in the Latino community. Sex, homosexuality, drug addiction, and death. And since El Sida brings up many subjects that Latinos don't want to discuss, many Latinos are still denying to themselves that in their community El Sida is a major problem.

The numbers speak for themselves. In practically every city and state where Latinos represent a large portion of the population, they represent even a larger portion of the AIDS population. What's the situation for Latinos in the state of New Jersey? Are there cultural taboos making the fight more difficult against this deadly disease? And what about the spread of AIDS in Latin America? Does that contribute to the spread of AIDS here in New Jersey? Those are just some of the questions we'll be analyzing today here with a panel of experts. Edgar Resto, HIV counselor at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Natalie Masonet, consultant to the state of New Jersey on AIDS and other health issues. And Vivian Torres, who is an HIV positive woman who started an organization for other Hispanic women with HIV. Welcome all to the program. It's a pleasure having you here.

Ms. Masonet, I'd like to start with you. Please explain to us what the figures are like in the state of New Jersey. How serious is this problem in the Hispanic community here in the state where we live? The epidemic is devastating our communities. Hispanics, many of us coming looking for that wonderful dream. And that wonderful dream is breaking right in front of our eyes. As of December 31, 1993, reported AIDS cases according to the State Department of Health shows that it's a total of 19,899 cases of AIDS, a statewide. From those, 15% of those cases are on Hispanics. What bothers me from these statistics is that 50% of all the cases are from injecting drug users. 24% on gay by sexual men and 15% from heterosexual sex.

Something else that I was trying just to look at the numbers. In 1993, 330 women have infected men in heterosexual contact. While 703 men have infected women in heterosexual contact, we all have to be aware. We cannot be able to think that we are home, sitting, taking care of our children. We have to be thinking that it's an epidemic out there. And we have to be able to learn and be aware that we keep our self-centered or negative. One of the things that I was looking into, as I was doing research for this program, is how state-wide the disease is spread all over the state. For example, in violent New Jersey, where we have 64% of all cases of AIDS are within Hispanics. But if we measure that number to the total population is only 22% of the total population are Hispanics.

So we have greater than 44% difference in how Hispanics have getting the disease in violent New Jersey. In state-wide, when you mention 15% of Hispanics are AIDS cases, are Hispanic in the state, Hispanics are not even 10% of the state population. So again, as I mentioned in the introduction, we have a higher proportion than even the population. This is one of the areas that we don't want to have a higher proportion. We want to have a higher proportion, for example, in political representation and we don't. But when it comes to AIDS cases, we have a much higher proportion. It's a very negative thing that's happening. But Mr. Rest, she was just talking about heterosexuals. And I think that's something that we must convey in this type of a program to the public that's listening. How serious is this situation among heterosexuals not only in the state of New Jersey, but around the world?

The epidemic is devastating. She was very clear on that. In New Jersey, itself among Hispanics, we could approximate that 70% of all cases of HIV infection are heterosexual related. Most of them also are related to IV drugs or needle-using. So for example, you may have a couple in which the male may be an IV drug user or a needle-user. And he may have sex with a partner who is heterosexual in comparison to the rest of the population that is bisexual or homosexual. And that is a particular, very important issue among the Latino population. We're not getting the disease through homosexual or bisexual sex, although the statistics show that it's a way of infection. However, the primary source of infection among Latinos is heterosexual sex and needle-user.

It starts through drug abuse, but then it becomes... Correct, because it's a chain reaction. You may start getting infected through needle-use, you may have one girlfriend, you may have a wife, you may have many sources of sexual partners, and that sources of partners could transmit the virus to many other people. How is the situation in Latin America and how does that affect the Hispanic community here? I know you have some research on that. I will give you just an example. In Honduras, for example, we have had so far 2,865 people in Brazil. We have had so far 43,455 in Dominican Republic, 2,179 cases. In Puerto Rico, we have so far approximately 13 cases, 13,000 cases of infected people. When we're talking about the dynamic of Hispanics or Latinos coming to the United States, we need to understand that that migratory process is important to detect as well as to pinpoint the progress of HIV and AIDS.

Puerto Ricans, for example, do not have any visa restrictions. They're easily coming to this country getting treatment or just a vacation or just to stay here. When you're talking that particular issue in comparison to many others, such as Brazilians, such as people from South America or Central America, they are more restricted because of visa and citizenship and issues. We will know that there's this invisible bridge between Puerto Rico and North Jersey and New York City, but which way is the traffic going? That's what I'm concerned about. Are they coming from HIV infected people from Puerto Rico coming here or people from here going there to get treatment or how does it work? It works both ways. Because what's happening is that a person that is infected in Puerto Rico may come to the United States to get better medical care as well as clinical trials, which in Puerto Rico they don't have that many. The Puerto Ricans that are living in here, when they're getting symptomatic, when they're becoming ill, they see that they have very little time to live in their lifespan.

Therefore, they go to Puerto Rico to feel the comfort of the family reunion, to feel the comfort of the weather. It's a constant migratory process back and forth from Puerto Ricans as well as Dominicans because we have to understand now that Dominicans are moving back to Puerto Rico, the working Puerto Rico, they may get any legal birth certificate allowing them to come to this country. So the migratory process between South America, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico is constantly changing and increasing the patterns of HIV infection because people from Central America may go to Dominican Republic, people from Dominican Republic may go to Puerto Rico and they will come to the United States. It's a really particular issue when you're talking about Latinos and HIV. Vivian, you tested HIV positive. What was that like when you found out? Let's start from the very beginning. When you found out that you had HIV, what went through your mind and how did you react to it?

When I first found out that I wasn't well informed and I didn't know much about HIV, it was really devastating but I didn't pay no mind to it. When I seek for help myself and I saw the gaps and all that is happening to the Latino woman, there was nobody there for me. Not for support services, not for information. I mean, it was good that I knew how to read English and speak it and I could just find the information. I needed it but it was really hard. It was tremendous. I couldn't find a support group for Latinos. As we were talking before, for Hispanics talk about sex and drug use and sexuality. It's a taboo so we don't really talk about that. This is why I decided to become an advocate for Latino women. So many things I have to be done. We have to culturally sensitive change a lot of the programs and a lot of RFPs which means the way that you have to write for get grants and get money.

They tell you the money is given for this and for this and for that and when it comes to the Latino community, it's completely different. We have to get a different kind of approach to get to the Latino woman. Has it changed? When did you find out that you were HIV positive and how much time has transpired and has things improved as far as getting assistance for Hispanic women or are the situations to the same? If it's improved, it's improved just a tiny little bit. Because you started an organization called Vivians Place. Tell us what that's about. I found that Vivians Place because I wanted to have the woman there to teach in, first of all, self-empowerment through self-love and self-worth. Which is one thing that the Latino woman, because whatever issues in the past life, HIV is just another thing. You have to talk about feeding their children, about being on welfare, about getting food stamps, about getting weak. It's like ACE is just another thing.

So they really don't focus on healthcare and stuff like that. But Vivians Place I had to compile myself. I got connected with a lot of national organizations that worked for minority and advocate and got policies, tours, minority health. And I brought it back to Vivians Place and that's what I started giving out all this information. And telling women, you have to be like this. You have to be assertive. You have to ask questions. You don't walk away from situations. You don't take medication because they tell you you must take that medication. You got a right to accept that. You got a right to challenge people. And when it comes to the way they are treated, it's kind of difficult for me because people got the tendency of wanting to know how you get infected. You know, like a lot of times it's completely irrelevant. I am part of an organization in New Jersey called New Jersey Woman and ACE Network. And we do a lot of public policy kind of digging and changing and trying to go into legislation and help women. Because it's too little that we could do from the community-based organizations from the bottom. We have to go higher.

And CDC definition of a woman with AIDS just changed recently. Woman wasn't included. I mean, women haven't been included in no trials or anything like that. We, women affected with HIV are taking medication according to the trials that has been done on gay, white men. So we have really taken a chance on medication. We've been taking a chance on everything. So it takes a lot of courage to go up there and tell them, you know, we are taking it. We have to change things. You know, a woman has to be like up in the front line. Ms. Masone, there was a fourth case that was going to be on the program with us today. I understand you know about his case. Could you tell us a little bit about his particular situation? Yes. With me was coming a dear friend, a man living with AIDS. He lived in Miragex County. He was coming here because he wanted to, he wanted everyone to know how much suffering he had gone through since he was diagnosed to be HIV positive in 1986. How many problems he had in the workplace? How many problems he had by talking to his children?

We are, which children that are in high school level now. How difficult was for him to talk to them about him being HIV infected? And how these youngsters have been having a lot of problems to deal with the fact that their dear father sooner or later will die because it's not cure for HIV. And not only discussing what their parents will feel, what his wife will feel. You know, this man is engaged in a very good relationship with a woman who is seronegative. So he's an HIV person living with a, he's a HIV positive individual living with a person who's seronegative. How can they be able to effectively deal in a relationship? And that's what I want people to know. The mere fact that your HIV positive, that doesn't tell you that you're going to die tomorrow. You know, you, people who say, should be positive need the support from the community, from the family.

If they can be able to change their behaviors, they can have a long life. At this particular moment, my dear friend, he's having problems, physiological problems. He's not able to move as fast as they used to do. We talked last night on to the midnight. And he was telling me how people perceive him. He's been diagnosed for a long time. He became an activist to help people with AIDS. And they see him as a leader. Out of the stratum, the person who's very positive, the person who's always telling the others, don't give up, is becoming more ill. But the problems he has been encountering, and this is something I like all of you to discuss. The problems he has been encountering, and perhaps you have encountered as a Hispanic woman, are there problems special to the Hispanic community? Is that taboo working in there? Is that not wanting to talk about homosexuality, or death, or sex, or even condoms, or protection?

Is that a problem in the Hispanic community with people who just want to shy away from this? Is that a cultural thing? Yes, no. I'm a counselor for HIV. I see it more among the Latino population, of course, because we have been taught to have sex, but we have never been taught to discuss sexuality openly. That is a problem that this generation has. We're highly sexually active. We're not sexually talkative. However, this problem has been encountering among all minority females. It is a major problem of Latina females, because the history of unemployment, the history of lack of health services, the history of drug using, or needle using, have been for centuries. Puerto Rican have had a heroin problem for more than 50 years. How could you address a Hispanic female with HIV when you have no address, and have drug using problem?

When you have no address, empowerment of all the government among Latina females. That is a major problem for the Hispanic community. We have no address many other issues that will allow us to be empowered. So HIV is just an adding point, and adding layer to the multidimensional conflict that we have in this society. What kind of problems have you encountered because of the culture? I had a lot of experiences as bad as calling for services for an appointment. And as soon as they hear a last name, Hispanic last name, they assume and they extend you to the public welfare. You call CBOs to ask for help. And as soon as you mention the last name, Hispanic, Rivera, Rodriguez, Torres, Santos, whatever, they will rapidly, you know, and the other problem with the Latina woman, specifically with the Latina woman, is that this is a family thing. You know, AIDS affects everybody. Every time that I go through the Ryan White Care Act, the way that Ryan White Money is supposed to be dispersed, it talks about individuals affected or infected by HIV.

So a lot of people don't seem to look at that affected situation. For instance, if I want to teach a woman how to practice safer sex, and if I don't bring the husband or the boyfriend in, and he's not allowed to participate, she won't dare do it because she feels like she's betraying him. Or so on, so on. So this is something that it has to be in a different way. When we talk about policy, you know, and money that is giving out for prevention, when it comes to the Hispanic population, it has to be developed in a different way. We have to have some food in order to, you know, like get people to come to a safer sex party, have partners to meet, you know, like go inside the houses, inside the bodegas, inside the laundromat. You know, I'm being one of them. I cannot be effective in the African American population or the White population. I'm very effective on my own Latinas because I'm one of them. So they feel free to listen to what I need to say. Yeah, but at the same time, you walk into a laundromat and you say to a few women that are there, look, I want to talk to you about AIDS and they'll go, oh no, please, you know.

This is another thing that is very important. Every time that I talk to social workers and case managers and people that are working in the field, which I do a lot of consultant work, it's like you have to be a friend of a Latino woman before you become a social worker before you become any any any part of this woman's life. You have to show her that you have friend that you have listening ears before you have a speaking mouth. What's the solution? Not only your consultant, how do we deal with this? Before we go into that is something very important to say, culturally, Latina women, we are very much engaged in our family. Our priority is not us as women, but our priority is our children and our spouses. Therefore, what happens is that you are HIV positive and you always put a lot of excuses because you have to take care of your children, you have to take care of your husband, you have to take care of so many things, then you don't take care of yourself. When you go to see a doctor, many of our service providers give you an appointment to be there at 9 o'clock in the morning and at the same time they have another 10 or 15 people waiting.

These women have to go to school and pick up the children. They have to cook a healthy meal for their husband because they don't need to be in a fish in the evening for dinner. Therefore, these women use this. I mean, do not take care of themselves by trying to help their children and their spouses. What can we do about that? The government through the New Jersey State Department of Health and the National Census of Disease Control have put a lot of money into communities to discuss awareness and to stop the spread of the disease. Last year along between 1993 and their year in 1994, the State Department of Health have put about $2.5 million to community-based organizations just to discuss HIV and AIDS prevention and education. Are Latinos utilizing that money? Well, from the 2.5 million approximately between 800,000 to 900,000 is going towards community-based organizations working with Latinos.

But the problem is, we have to make a big effort to go into the communities. We have to teach the community to come and look for those services. Those services exist there for us, the community. And as a community, we have to look for them. Another point which is very important is where the money is going. A lot of community-based organizations, they are generally interesting in fighting the disease. However, we have to look into, we have to hire competent staff. We have to work in these grand opportunities in a way that is very aggressively. And the time and effort that that money is given should be used fully. What I mean is that if we receive $100,000 or $200,000 for a prevention grant on HIV and AIDS, let's use that money on direct services. Let's use the people entirely to work on HIV and AIDS and not use these people to do other things within the community-based organization.

That is the main problem. How do we utilize these resources that Ms. Masone just explained that we do have, the state does have, how does the Hispanic community better utilize those resources? Perhaps by analyzing the complexity of the problem. It is not just only a homosexual and gay issue. It's not only a heterosexual issue. We need to look at the Department of Health as well as many other policymakers. We need to look into migration patterns among the Latino communities. What happens when the Mexican illegally comes to this country and starts working on a farm then goes back to Mexico and starts making love to that wife. Most likely that Mexican here had unprotected sexual behaviors. Most likely with prostitutes. How are you going to educate a migrant farm worker when they are not resources looking into that particular problem? How could you address HIV drug use in sex workers when those modes are illegally in this country?

Vivian, we don't have much time left, but I'd like you to close by giving some advice to Hispanic women as to how to protect themselves. I would take precautions. Yes, the most important thing that I would say to Hispanic woman is to think that it's about them. To be aggressive, to be open-minded about information, to ask questions, the worst questions is the ones that we don't ask. And being in control. And go out there and seek for help. I mean, it's like the help is there. Sometimes it's under other names, so it's not as easy to find it. But there's people that is willing to help. There's a lot of Latin organizations in this, especially in the city of Newark and Elizabeth, that are willing to help women, especially women with the children and together with the problems and housing and all the other things that comes together. But women have to start being assertive and start saying it's about me and it's my life and they should take control of it.

One of the things that we notice on this program quite often, regardless of what the issue is, is that in the Hispanic community, we tend to find that it's a question of disseminating information. There are a lot of services available, regardless of what the issue, that Latinos are not aware that are out there. And in the case of the AIDS epidemic, I think that's probably the bottom line. There are programs like this one that we're doing here today to show to the Hispanic community that there is help available, that there are people like Vivian, who from personal experience can describe how to deal with that situation and their counselors, like yourselves, who can advise them on how to better fight the epidemic. So I think that we've accomplished something here today. I feel very happy that you were on the program because it gives us an opportunity to make a little contribution to that. And then maybe in the future you can come back and keep talking about this because we need to keep talking about this issue more and more in our community. And I thank you for being here. I'm very happy that you were here. Vivian, we wish you a very long life and we hope you can come back 10 years from now and keep talking about this issue.

Thank you very much. Miguel Perez for images, images, images. And I'll see you next week on another edition of this program devoted to those beautiful images of the Hispanic community. Hasta pronto. . .

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