Miami Herald - Thursday, December 17, 1992
Lydia Martin, Herald Staff Writer

It is still considered a gay disease, the result of loose morals, a blotch on the family name, somebody else's problem.

Statistics bear these out as false perceptions, created by lack of information. But no mainstream Hispanic celebrity has stepped in to help rip away the cloak of ignorance and shame.

No Magic Johnson to say anybody can get HIV.

No Elizabeth Taylor to lend her name, embrace the cause, raise the money, persuade people AIDS is everybody's problem.

Until now. Now there is Celia Cruz.

Cruz is as mainstream as it gets. The Queen of Salsa bridges generational barriers to teenagers, parents, grandparents. She has been devoted to her husband Pedro Knight for four decades, with no hint of scandal. She commands respect with traditional folk yet draws regard for being open-minded and tolerant.

Saturday, Cruz will headline a benefit concert at the James L. Knight Center in downtown Miami to raise money for two AIDS service organizations, Health Crisis Network and Share Your Gift. She also seeks to spread AIDS awareness among Hispanics.

She'll do it with help from her friends Olga Guillot, Angela Carrasco, Willy Colon, Nestor Torres and a host of other Hispanic musicians who might be called pioneers in taking on the AIDS cause.

"I am doing this because I have to," Cruz said this week from her home in New York. "I have lost too many people to AIDS to ignore this. So many of my good friends are gone. I don't want to lose any more."

Cruz was asked to do the concert by good friend Kevin Kirby, who has AIDS and is manager of Warsaw, a gay Miami Beach club where Cruz performed last spring in front of nearly 2,000.

That night, she promised to return to Miami for an AIDS benefit.

"I felt so much love that night at that club," Cruz said. "This is my way to return some of that."

Leaders in the fight against AIDS applaud Cruz for stepping forward at a time when more Hispanics are developing the disease. They say her name can make all the difference.

"Celia is a wonderful figure, a mother figure. Everybody loves Celia," said Alberto Julbe, president of Share Your Gift.

"Finally, we have a Hispanic celebrity saying the word out loud, saying, 'Wake up and smell the Cuban coffee. AIDS is everybody's disease.' "

Reported cases of people living with AIDS in the United States number 242,000; more than 40,000 of them Hispanic. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the disease is spreading fastest among blacks, Hispanics and women.

In Dade, AIDS cases since 1980 number 7,749. Hispanics account for 2,420 cases, or 31 percent.

"Hispanics make up only about 7 percent of the U.S. population, but we account for more than 17 percent of the total AIDS cases," said Carlos Velez, director of institutional affairs for the National Minority AIDS Council in Washington. "That tells you there is still a great sense of denial and misinformation. We are very much behind, and we need to catch up."

Transmission of the virus through heterosexual contact is three times more common among Hispanics than among non-Hispanic whites. Syphilis and gonorrhea also occur disproportionately among Hispanics.

AIDS activists and health care workers blame denial, lack of information and barriers of religion, culture and language in discussing sexuality.

"For Hispanics, you have the added component of the Catholic church, which is resistant to any kind of open conversation about AIDS," Velez said. "The church says you don't have to teach about condoms, you don't have to teach about sexually transmitted diseases, you just have to teach about abstinence. Couple that with the fact that Latinos in general are not comfortable sitting around in a circle talking about sex, and you can see the problem."

Local AIDS activists say getting information out to the Hispanic community has been a challenge.

"'We have had a tough time convincing civic groups to let us in to do educational programs," said Rudy Molinet, board president of Health Crisis Network.

It makes being informed about safe sex an especially tough problem for teenagers.

"A lot of Hispanic teenagers aren't able to talk to their parents about sexuality," said Gigi Laudisio, resource/substance abuse specialist for Switchboard of Miami. "They are punished for even mentioning the subject. Many Hispanics are in denial about adolescent sexual activity and therefore in denial about sexually transmitted diseases."

Helping to change that is Pedro Zamora, who was diagnosed with HIV when he was a 17-year-old student at Hialeah High School. Zamora, now 21, has made it his mission to get the message about safer sex to teenagers and Hispanics.

"The first education efforts were to the Anglo community at large, and what works for mainstream America doesn't work for Hispanic communities or black communities," Zamora said. "And you're not going to speak to teenagers the same way you speak to adults. We have finally realized that."

The activists fight secrecy and shame.

They say some Hispanic parents won't admit their child died of AIDS. Some Hispanics are afraid to tell their families about their diagnosis, a problem that crosses ethnic lines.

"A friend of mine hid it from his family until the end. They found out the day before he died," Molinet said. "He had never told them he was gay. We Hispanics need to get over the fear and the ignorance. Parents are still kicking their kids out of the house, lying about them dying of cancer or something else. This is what it was like 10 years ago in the Anglo community."

Ignorance abounds about how the disease is transmitted.

When Luigi Ferrer, an HIV-positive Miamian, goes home to Puerto Rico, his family puts away the silverware and uses plastic until he leaves.

"There is little closeness between me and my family," Ferrer said. "They just don't understand HIV and how it is transmitted."

The fear and ignorance lead some to postpone getting help.

"They figure if they ignore it, it will go away," said Dr. Laureno Vega, executive director of La Liga Contra El SIDA (League Against AIDS). "But of course, it doesn't and people don't get medical attention until it is too late."

Only recently have AIDS organizations begun adding cultural variety to their education programs, Velez said.

"There was not enough out there in Spanish, or the urban English many Hispanics speak," Velez said. "Luckily, that is changing."

Maria Gonzalez, a Miami therapist who counsels Hispanics with AIDS, said the new focus on information is making a difference.

"I see a lot more love and understanding in families, more people willing to talk about the disease," she said. "Things are gradually getting better. Having Celia Cruz is wonderful. She is Cuban, she is black, she is a woman. The kids identify with her, the parents identify with her, the grandparents identify with her."

When Velez of the National Minority AIDS Council heard Cruz was doing the benefit in Miami, he immediately came up with three or four projects she could do nationally, including a television special on a Spanish-language network.

Cruz vowed this week to do whatever it takes.

"I won't drop this. My community is dying. I am not going to let that continue," she said. "And to all of the Hispanics out there, I say remember this is your disease. It doesn't discriminate. You can be homosexual, heterosexual. Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican. We have to stop ignoring this right now."

An Evening with Celia & Friends: 8 p.m. Saturday at the James L. Knight Center in downtown Miami. Tickets are $21, plus a service charge if purchased through Ticketmaster outlets. Call Ticketmaster at 523-3309 in Broward, 358-5885 in Dade and (407) 839-3900 in Palm Beach.

Also available are $100 tickets that include cabaret-style seating and a post-concert reception with the artists. Those tickets can be purchased through Health Crisis Network, or Share Your Gift, or by calling organizer Kevin Kirby at 531-4498. There is an answering machine.

Cruz also will perform with Nestor Torres at midnight Friday at Club One, inside the Miracle Center, 3301 Coral Way. Doors open at 9 p.m. Tickets cost $18.50 in advance through Ticketmaster, 523-3309 in Broward, 358-5885 in Dade and 407 839-3900 in Palm Beach; $22.50 at the door the night of the show. Call 447-6784 for more information.

CAPTION: PHOTO Celia Cruz (n), Rudy Molinet and Alberto Julbe (AIDS); photo: Pedro ZAMORA

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