Bay Windows - December 1, 2005
Ethan Jacobs, ejacobs@baywindows.com.

"I think we really had a hard time reaching Asian men who are still in the closet or who didn't identify as gay men," said MAP for Health co-founder and former board member Quynh Dang. "The way we were able to reach gay Asian men was through white men, to go to places called 'sushi bars' where white men pick up Asian men. There were white men who really liked Asian men, and we talked to them and got to know them, and through them we would meet Asian men."

Dang said many of the men they reached through the "sushi bars" felt completely isolated from their communities because of their sexuality, and to protect their secret they only dated men outside the API community.

In the early 90s Dang said that the number of HIV infections in the API community was relatively small but the rate of infection was alarmingly high, and the founders of MAP for Health worried that both the mainstream HIV/AIDS organizations and the community health centers serving the API community were ill-equipped to deal with the AIDS in the API community. Many closeted API men were unwilling to seek services from the mainstream HIV/AIDS organizations. Meanwhile it was difficult to discuss HIV within the API community, Dang explained, both because it conflicted with the community's sense of itself and it touched on a number of taboo topics.

"Among the community that's within the United States there's this illusion that we're all healthy, we're the model minority, we work hard, we're straight, we have family values," said Dang. She also said for many within the API community there are strong cultural prohibitions on discussing both death and sexuality.

"HIV is the intersection of some very taboo topics in the Asian community, and we were seeing that some Asian service providers weren't doing very much about it," said Dang.

MAP for Health began in the early 90s as an offshoot of the Queer Asian Pacific Alliance (QAPA), a social and support group for Boston's API community. The group focused on educating the API and provider community on HIV and AIDS, and in 1993 a group of about seven volunteers formally split off from QAPA and formed MAP for Health to pursue HIV/AIDS work fulltime. By 1995 the group had received a few small grants, including funding from the AIDS Action Committee, and formally incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and hired a part-time program coordinator. This year marks MAP for Health's 10th anniversary since its formal incorporation, and in those years the organization has expanded to include a staff of nine. The organization will celebrate its anniversary at a Dec. 1 cocktail reception at the Courtyard Boston Tremont Hotel.

In the early days MAP for Health did trainings on HIV/AIDS for community health centers serving the API community and did outreach to API service providers working at mainstream HIV/AIDS organizations health centers. Through that work Dang said they built a network of providers who were culturally and linguistically competent. And from the early days MAP for Health did outreach not only to gay and bi API men but to other at-risk populations including women and Cambodian and Vietnamese immigrants.

And while the stigma around the topic of AIDS has not disappeared in the API community, MAP for Health is finding it easier to reach gay and bi API men. Rather than relying on white men in "sushi bars," MAP for Health is now in its second year sponsoring a prevention program called Asian Impact. Modeled after the Mpowerment Project, an HIV prevention program endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an effective program for reducing HIV infection among men who have sex with men, Asian Impact is aimed at building a community network of gay and bi API men and spreading prevention messages through that community. MAP for Health sponsors a range of social activities, from parties to trips to Six Flags and Shakespeare in the Park, and incorporates HIV prevention information into those activities.

"It's a lot more about people coming together socially, getting some HIV information, and then learning how to talk about it and diffuse it through their social networks," said MAP for Health Executive Director Jacob Smith Yang. He said many events draw around 20 men, and a few of the larger events have brought in as many as 100 attendees.

Yang said Asian Impact was also borne out of the realization that there were no bars or clubs, a common target of mainstream HIV prevention campaigns, in Boston with a critical mass of gay and bi Asian men. Asian Impact allows them to circumvent that problem by creating their own space.

In addition to Asian Impact, MAP for Health has a number of other new programs in the works. In January the organization will team with Georgetown University to take part in a federally funded testing initiative surveying gay and bi male clients who come in for HIV testing. Yang said it is the first major study to collect comprehensive data on the HIV epidemic among gay and bi API men. MAP for Health also received a grant from the City of Boston to study health disparities among the city's API community. The organization also continues to offer counseling and rapid testing, among other programs.

Ten years after its incorporation stigma is still the greatest obstacle MAP for Health faces in reaching members of the API community. Amit Dixit, board co-chair of MAP for Health, said that is one of the reasons MAP for Health sees programs like Asian Impact as so crucial, as ways to create spaces where people feel comfortable talking about HIV.

"I think a lot of people in my community think HIV issues are something that's back in India and affects marginalized people back in India... Because of this and all of the stereotypes and stigma associated with our community, a lot of people who test positive are more afraid about community reaction than about health concerns." said Dixit. He said this often leads to delayed treatment.

MAP for Health's work has been further complicated by the state budget cuts to HIV work. Starting in 2002 the state cut about $20 million from its AIDS budget in the wake of the state budget crisis. As a result, Yang said many of the organizations around the state serving the API community in cities like Quincy, Fall River, and Lowell have closed up shop, and MAP for Health has been forced to pick up the slack.

"I think what's challenging is that there are fewer organizations or programs that do HIV work than say five years ago," said Yang.

MAP for Health, on the other hand, has been able to maintain its funding over this period and even expand, allowing them to continue their work without making the cutbacks that other organizations have been forced to make.

"Our own agency has actually been quite fortunate to grow during that time," said Yang.

The 10th anniversary "Putting Health on the Map" cocktail reception will be held Dec. 1 at 6 p.m. at the Courtyard Boston Tremont Hotel. Tickets are $75. To purchase tickets or for more information contact Jacqui Fowler Morton at jmorton@mapforhealth.org or 617-426-6755 x201.

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