Latinos at Odds Over Plan for AIDS Memorial

According to some Latino activists and others, the surge of AIDS and HIV-related deaths among Latinos is as dangerous and obvious as a knife at the throat, but many people in the community pretend it’s not there.

In an attempt to address that denial, activists led by longtime Eastside organizer Richard Zaldivar have proposed a memorial to AIDS victims at Lincoln Park in the largely Latino blue-collar community of Lincoln Heights.

Unlike memorials in San Francisco and Florida, which include sidewalk plaques with the names of AIDS victims, the Lincoln Park project is envisioned as an expansive, permanent monument in a public setting. It would include a rose garden, stylized zigzag benches, a walking path, a sculpture and eight wall panels where victims of AIDS -- Latinos and non-Latinos -- would be listed.

The memorial would be largely financed with public money, with $400,000 coming from the state of California and another $75,000 from the city of Los Angeles. Private donors have contributed $30,000.

But the nine-year effort has hit a snag.

Some opponents argue that a public park is an inappropriate place for a monument with such a somber message. They add that the memorial would destroy green space in a part of town that doesn’t have enough parkland as it is.

Proponents, however, say those arguments mask the real concern: Latino opponents of the idea just don’t want to talk about the deadly disease in their community.

“We need to start talking about it because it’s our epidemic,” said Zaldivar, 50. “And among Latinos, there seems to be this overwhelming fear that someone will hear them talking about their lovers who died from it. It’s like a knife at the throat being held by the machos in the community, who say that they had better not talk about it.”

That assertion is denied by opponents of the plan.

“It’s simply a case of taking up too much park space,” said one Lincoln Heights resident, Hugo Pacheco, a 50-year-old real estate salesman who has helped spearhead the drive against the memorial.

“And why just AIDS? What about diabetes? It’s a bigger thing” than AIDS.

Talk about the proposed memorial, to be called “The Wall -- Las Memorias,” comes at a time when the number of diagnosed AIDS-related cases is on the increase in the United States for the first time since 1993.

Researchers at the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta say one reason for the increase is the explosion of AIDS and HIV-related cases among Latinos.

One telling statistic underscores Zaldivar’s contention. In 1981, fewer than 10% of AIDS cases diagnosed in California afflicted Latinos. By 2000, they were the victims in more than 30%.

Whether Zaldivar’s claim -- that Latinos fear talking about the disease -- has substance depends on who is doing the talking.

At Lincoln Park recently, Ramon Castaneda, a 29-year-old who recently tested positive for HIV, said he thinks the conversation should be publicly engaged.

“I’m trying to deal with it, but I’m not afraid to talk about it,” the City Terrace resident said. “I haven’t been threatened by someone who heard me talk about it. But some friends have been. My mother doesn’t want her friends to know, so she won’t talk about it. Some of my relatives feel the same way.”

Nearby, another park visitor took another view.

“I don’t think there’s anything special about AIDS that says we need to know about or put up a memorial,” said Arturo Aguilar, 41, of Los Angeles.

On a recent Sunday morning, the reaction was much the same at the nearby Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, where some worshipers either waved off a reporter or offered varied views on the subject.

Experts in the field say public discussion of AIDS is healthy for any community.

“It raises the awareness about HIV and AIDS,” said Jerry Gates, director of the Pacific AIDS Education and Training Center at USC. Such discussions, he added, could save lives.

Meanwhile, as the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Commission prepares to consider final plans for the memorial next month, debate over the location continues.

Zaldivar says the park is a good place because it is in a thriving Latino community that already contains two city-approved tributes to Mexican heroes and culture.

El Parque de Mexico, which includes a statue of Mexican patriot Emiliano Zapata on a horse and the busts of other heroes, straddles an intersection just south of the park. And the Plaza de la Raza cultural center, which stages plays, exhibits and other activities, is in the park.

“It’s very appropriate,” Zaldivar said. “I just think an AIDS monument is no different than a Florence Nightingale statue in a park. No one would question why Pancho Villa, despite all the people that he killed,” is commemorated in Parque de Mexico.

Pacheco and others, however, disagree.

“The biggest argument against it is that it’s taking up park space,” he said, arguing that the monument would occupy one acre in the 46-acre park. He also repeated the oft-heard complaints that the Eastside doesn’t have as much parkland as other parts of the city.

Unlike other opponents, such as Sue Nelson, a local official with the Sierra Club who sticks to the park space arguments, Pacheco goes further to question whether any monument about AIDS can educate the public.

Zaldivar, he said, “says it’ll help the public understand the devastation of AIDS. I question that.”

Pacheco went on: “A monument that may list 2,000 victims will make the park look like a cemetery. And if you’re in the park with your kids, how do you start explaining AIDS to your kids?”

Explaining that the memorial would take up only 150,000 square feet of parkland, Zaldivar replied, “We need to be responsible on how to create a discussion and take ownership of an epidemic that is killing us.”