Some conversations are not easy to have, but they MUST be had especially when they could ultimately mean the difference between life and death. That’s why I feel proud and humbled to have the honor of telling you about the One Conversation at a Time campaign that is part of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Act Against AIDS Initiative.
If the subject of this post makes you uncomfortable: YOU SHOULD READ IT. If you are Latino: YOU SHOULD READ IT. If you are not Latino: YOU SHOULD READ IT. If you are sexually active: YOU SHOULD READ IT. If you are not sexually active: YOU SHOULD READ IT.
Why? Because we are all incredibly powerful, we all have reach and with just one conversation at a time we can all do things like help prevent new HIV infections, reduce the stigma and discrimination that people living with HIV face and we can educate those closest to us, those we love the most about the threat of HIV and how to prevent it.
Gente, this is a MUST read!
Before I go on to tell you more about One Conversation at a Time. I want to dedicate this post to Xavier and tell you a little bit about him.
I met Xavier through my mother. She adored Xavier and as soon as I met him, I could understand why. My mother met Xavier when she was the owner of a beauty shop. He started working for her and they became bestest of friends. Xavier was young, driven, hard-working, kind and generous. He was a talented Latino cosmetologist who was openly gay. He had the love and support of his family and it was a beautiful thing.
Xavier had an amazing smile and great cheeks (that’s him with the smile in the picture above and me acting a fool on the pay phone). He was always pleasantly plump or more like lleno de vida as people say and then he started losing weight all of a sudden. At first it didn’t seem like a big deal and he was actually kind of excited about it, but then he started to get gaunt and my mother was worried. Really worried.
Now my mother, like many Latina moms, is a professional worrier and I’m ashamed to say that when she brought up her worries about Xavier, when she told me she was scared he might be HIV positive or have AIDS, I dismissed them as her being exagerada. I thought that surely Xavier knew to protect himself from sexually transmitted diseases and surely he had. I thought at the very least he was getting tested for HIV regularly. Basically, I made a whole lot of assumptions instead of just having a conversation.
Well, my mother continued to worry about him and she did have conversations with him about her worries and told him he needed to go to the doctor, but he dismissed her worries out of fear or shame and had a million and one excuses why he couldn’t go find out what was wrong. Finally, she put her foot down and took him to the doctor. Unfortunately, by that point, Xavier had full blown AIDS.
Then, in what seemed like an incredibly painful blink of an eye Xavier was gone. He died surrounded by his loved ones and he was as gracious and generous as ever until the end. Xavier is the reason I so desperately want us all to save lives One Conversation at a Time.
As a Latina, I particularly want to get the word out to other Latinos because Latinos are disproportionately affected by HIV and AIDS. Even though we only make up 16 percent of the total U.S. population we account for 19 percent of the 1.1 million people living with HIV in the nation and 21 percent of new infections every year.
So here’s what we can do to decrease those numbers:
- Be a part of the conversation online…
- Visit the One Conversation at a Time campaign page and get facts that you can share with others
- Like the Act Against AIDS Facebook Page
- Follow Act Against AIDS on Twitter and tweet using #OneConverstation
- Follow Act Against AIDS on Instagram
Then talk about it, talk about it, talk about it. Have One Conversation at a Time about HIV and AIDS with the people in your life. If you don’t know how to bring up the subject, let me suggest that you sit down and watch the telenovela web series “Sin Vergüenza” with them and then discuss it.
I watched all four episodes in one sitting. This series is a great conversation starter so please watch it and then share it far and wide. I’ve included the first episode below for you:
Who can you have this conversation with?
Thank you for sharing this important information with us.