By Gary Barlow

Staff writer

More than 100 community activists, most of them youths, gathered at the Batey Urbano on Paseo Boricua in Humboldt Park Dec. 1 to mark World AIDS Day and learn more about the epidemic’s impact in the Puerto Rican community.

“This community is not about sitting down and letting things happen,” said Mervin Mendez, project director of Vida/SIDA. “This community is about shaping its future.”

Vida/SIDA, a project of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, organized the annual event. A candlelight vigil that was to have preceded the Batey Urbano gathering was cancelled due to inclement weather, but the freezing rain outside didn’t dampen attendees’ determination to fight HIV/AIDS. PRCC Executive Director Jose Lopez reminded the audience that combating AIDS in Chicago’s Puerto Rican community has taken resolve and vision.

“As you use tonight to reflect, it’s important that you think about this issue of leadership,” Lopez said.

PRCC leaders founded Vida/SIDA in 1988, Lopez noted, and determined from the outset that addressing homophobia had to be a central concern.

“Everybody was afraid to speak of this horrible epidemic because of homophobia,” he said. “So we needed to be honest with ourselves and we needed to be honest with our community.”

Juana Ballesteros, director of the Greater Humboldt Park Community of Wellness, discussed the epidemic’s spread among Puerto Ricans, noting that Puerto Ricans, including many heterosexuals, have been disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS. Latinos in general, she said, are 45-percent more likely than Anglos to have AIDS by the time they take their first HIV test.

Ballesteros’ group helped prepare a recent report that developed an HIV/AIDS “Call to Action” for Illinois’ Latino communities. First and foremost, she said, the report found, “There’s not enough visibility on the actual impact of HIV/AIDS in the Latino community.”

“We’re just not talking about it enough,” Ballesteros said. “We need to make more forums like this available so we can come together and talk about this.”

The event also featured artwork by a number of students from Pedro Albizu Campos Alternative High School, and several students from the school talked about the epidemic and read poems they’d composed concerning HIV/AIDS. Jade, the 2006 Paseo Boricua Queen, also spoke about the need for more HIV/AIDS awareness and education.

“The epidemic in our community is unfortunately not going anywhere,” Ballesteros said. “However, if we come together and continue to work together we can make change happen.”