A Different Front in the AIDS War : Minority Activists, Facing Cultural and Religious Stigmas Tied to the Deadly Disease, Count on a Sense of Community in Fighting the Epidemic

When Louie Bass was without a place to sleep, when he had no food and was thinking of suicide, the Minority AIDS Project was his lifeline.

Each time he stumbled in trying to face up to his HIV infection, Bass was rescued by African-American AIDS workers who arranged for emergency housing, food and medical care. He credits Dr. Wilbert Jordan, who helped found the AIDS clinic at Watts’ King-Drew Medical Center, with restoring his will to live.

Without their help, “I wouldn’t be alive today,” the 50-year-old former social worker said. “When I come here (to the clinic) and people talk, it’s a comfort because it’s all black. . . . There’s a closeness.”

Like many minorities with the AIDS virus, Bass first turned to his ethnic community for information and assistance. And minority communities have begun to respond through new and expanded programs, especially in light of the growing number of AIDS cases among Latinos and African-Americans in Los Angeles.

But minority AIDS agencies face many daunting tasks, including dealing with cultural and religious stigmas against homosexuality and birth control; language barriers in the Latino and Asian communities; fear among immigrants that they will be deported if they seek AIDS information or treatment; and the lingering perception that AIDS is still a disease of Anglo gay men.

Though the agencies are making some progress, the level of services in central Los Angeles is inadequate and lags far behind efforts in the Anglo community, said Jordan and several other front-line AIDS workers.

“We’re inching our way forward, but at least we’re moving along,” said Olivia Rodriguez, executive director of Avance Human Services, a Latino AIDS agency in East Los Angeles.

On the Eastside--home to more than 400,000 Latinos--there are no hospices and only three AIDS organizations. In the Downtown area, which has the most AIDS cases in central Los Angeles, just a few agencies cater to Latinos and Asians. And South-Central’s second AIDS hospice opened only last month.

“Ten years ago, when AIDS started very heavily, the white gay community started educating their people,” said Paul David, director of health education for the Minority AIDS Project. “Now they work with the assumption that most people in their community know the basics. We’re still dealing with the basics in the black and Latino communities, getting people to understand.”

Said Jordan: “What’s good for West Hollywood doesn’t necessarily work for South-Central. There is no black gay community here. Black gay men are intertwined with everyone else. So the black community has had to embrace this as a collective community, which the white community didn’t have to do. You have a different system altogether.”

Several of the city’s major AIDS organizations have been reaching out to minority communities by hiring bilingual employees and having workers go through cultural sensitivity training. AIDS Project Los Angeles and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation have worked on joint projects with minority AIDS organizations, mostly in South-Central Los Angeles. And the Shanti Foundation of Los Angeles has begun a campaign to work with at least 100 black churches in Los Angeles on AIDS education as well as with black fraternities, sororities and business organizations.

“AHF’s goal is to service everyone affected by HIV, and it doesn’t mean staying in one location or speaking just one language,” said Michael Weinstein, director of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “We know that the numbers are growing among African-Americans and Latinos and our efforts have to be there too.”

But there is still the affinity many minorities feel toward their own people.

“There’s a real serious engagement I have with fellow Asians because there’s a common identity,” said Roy, a 27-year-old Filipino from Newport Beach who attends support group meetings conducted by the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team in Chinatown. “Even if everyone isn’t Filipino, they’re all Asian.”

AIDS cases are soaring among blacks and Latinos, especially in central Los Angeles, where more than half of the approximately 3,000 cases reported to the Los Angeles County Health Department since 1981 were African-Americans and Latinos. As of August, 37% of all the AIDS cases reported countywide were Latino or African-American. Asians make up only 1% of AIDS cases in the county, but community activists say the disease is underreported because of cultural stigmas.

Among minority groups, the African-American community offers the broadest range of AIDS-related services, including food pantries, massage, art therapy and aerobics classes. Clients and AIDS workers attribute a good part of that progress to Los Angeles Laker Earvin (Magic) Johnson’s announcement last year that he is HIV-positive.

Faith United Methodist Church, at 108th Street and Western Avenue, will open the Imani Unidos AIDS Project Food Pantry in South Los Angeles later this month, offering free food to HIV patients. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Wings of Hope project is starting an AIDS education program that will work with 52 churches in the community. The Black AIDS Prevention Team has weekly aerobics classes for people in the community--whether or not they are HIV-positive--to keep them exercising and to disseminate information about AIDS.

The City Council last week approved a $594,000 loan to the Minority AIDS Project for an adult day-care center in Baldwin Hills for people with HIV or AIDS.

Last month, AIDS activists from across the city and community residents hailed the opening of the Carl Bean AIDS Care Center, a 25-bed hospice on West Adams Boulevard that will serve mostly African-American and Latino AIDS patients. About half the clients served by agencies in South Los Angeles are Latino, mostly because of the recent influx of Central American immigrants.

“This should have happened a long time ago, but at least it’s here now,” said Eric Horton, 26, an African-American and one of the first three clients to move into the hospice and return to South Los Angeles. “We’re headed in the right direction with the hospice.”

However, no such facility is available on the Eastside or in the Downtown area, where AIDS and HIV patients must sometimes seek medical help outside their communities.

The shortage of services is particularly acute in the Latino community, where AIDS cases are on the rise and activists are struggling to confront macho attitudes and Catholic beliefs about birth control and sex.

“There’s not enough resources. It’s very scarce if you consider the number of Latinos in Los Angeles,” said Lupe Carreon of El Centro Human Services Corp.-Milagros AIDS Project of East Los Angeles. “There’s not enough prevention and education being done, not enough services needed to prevent it.”

“The most we can really offer are support groups, but that’s not enough,” said Oscar De La O director of Bienestar , which means “well-being” in Spanish.

While Latinos in South-Central and Watts can use AIDS agencies run by African-Americans, many living on the Eastside, Pico-Union and elsewhere in the city can’t get to these places or are reluctant to contact agencies that don’t have bilingual staff.

“If you’re a non-English speaker, until recently you couldn’t get help from the Anglo agencies,” said Roberto, a 50-year-old client of Bienestar . “They had been sadly lacking in bilingual speakers and workers. And they still don’t understand the cultural nuances that exist in the community against the whole issue of AIDS. Only the Latino community can understand these things and its own people well enough to help.”

Because there are few services in the Eastside, some Latinos are referred to clinics in West Los Angeles for assistance, and others go to the AIDS clinic at County-USC Medical Center in Boyle Heights. About 38% of the clinic’s 2,700 clients each month are Latino, hospital officials said. About 19% are African-American and about 1% are Asian.

Several Latino immigrants, especially Central Americans, fear they will be deported if they seek out AIDS services, De La O said.

All HIV testing at clinics is confidential and cannot be reported to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said Kathy Alfred, an attorney who has handled cases involving HIV-infected immigrants.

Roberto added: “The Central Americans in the Pico-Union and Westlake areas are a completely uneducated population of people. There’s work there, but not enough is being done.” With the help of Bienestar , Roberto said he is working to set up an AIDS information booth near 7th and Alvarado streets later this month.

On the predominantly Mexican Eastside, Avance Human Services, a counseling and educational agency, is beginning a theatrical, educational outreach program targeted at men who have sex with men. And Cara a Cara , another Latino AIDS agency, hopes to start a program to track clients from the moment they test HIV-positive, instead of referring them to other agencies.

Although Latino and African-American communities are making some headway, the Asian community is still playing catch-up.

“In the past three years we’re a little notch above where we were before, but we’re so far behind in AIDS education,” said Dean Goishi, director of the Asian Pacific AIDS Education Program. “There are very few services available to Asians in Los Angeles.”

As of July, only 1% of the AIDS cases reported in Los Angeles County since 1981 were Asian. Only two agencies in the Asian community assist people with AIDS or HIV.

But Joel Tan of the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team said he believes there are many unreported cases in the community, with some Asians leaving the country after they have tested HIV-positive, and others dying silently of AIDS.

“As far as statistics are concerned there’s a lot of under-reporting going on,” Tan said. “And the statistics will stay low . . . to maintain the status of (Asians as) the model minority.

“What’s ironic is we’re the model minority, yet we’re suffering tremendously. I look at the African-American community and, yes, their numbers are higher, but you have a tremendous network of care there.”

Jordan believes that new minority AIDS organizations and programs will emerge, particularly in the African-American community where he sees more political power and community involvement.

“These things don’t happen overnight,” Jordan said. “It took a long time for some of the churches to get involved. It could take a while for more things to come around. . . . We just need to see it faster.”

With the help of Jordan and workers at the Minority AIDS Project, Bass has received a rent subsidy for his new apartment, has begun to take classes and views life in a new way.

“When you go through this HIV thing, you’re paranoid, you’re depressed,” Bass said. “I thought about committing suicide. I started drinking. (Minority AIDS Project) helped me off alcohol and Dr. Jordan, he helped me see myself differently. It’s a real self-esteem booster.”

Tracking an Epidemic

AIDS cases have been growing steadily throughout Los Angeles. In the central part of the city, the disease has hit the hardest in the Downtown and Southwest areas. These Aug. 31 figures reflect all AIDS cases reported to the county since 1981. Central Anglo: 825 Black: 215 Latino: 464 Other: 42 East Anglo: 46 Black: 9 Latino: 136 Other: 5 Southwest Anglo: 45 Black: 498 Latino: 91 Other: 3 South-Southeast Anglo: 18 Black: 266 Latino: 87 Other: 5 San Antonio Anglo: 53 Black: 13 Latino: 129 Other: 2