San Francisco Chronicle; Thursday, July 30, 1998
Tanya Schevitz, Chronicle Staff Writer

"Con una sandia es buena la vida," suggested 17-year-old Mayra Flores of Concord. "Si tienes SIDA no comes sandia."

Loosely translated, Flores said life is good when you can enjoy watermelon. But if you don't protect yourself from AIDS, you could lose out on the pleasures of eating the sweet summertime fruit.

An unusual suggestion, to be sure, but county health officials have their ears and minds open as they search for ways to spread the AIDS education campaign into the Latino community.

Despite an intensive education campaign in English, the rate of HIV infection is rising among minorities -- including Latinos -- in Contra Costa County.

"Part of it is language issues, part of it is cultural issues in terms of what is taboo to talk about. And part of it is economic issues," said Nancy Puttkammer of the county's AIDS project.

To change that, the health department is tapping the Latino community for ideas on a Spanish-language campaign.

Yesterday, consultant Victoria Alvarado met with students at Ygnacio Valley High School's summer school program as part of a monthlong research project.

Despite Contra Costa's aggressive prevention and education campaign, the message is not reaching the Latino community, the students said, speaking in Spanish with their teacher translating.

Most of the 16 students said they do not know where to go to get information on AIDS or to get tested for HIV.

Young people are getting false information on the streets, and parents who "live in another time" do not talk to them about issues surrounding sex, said 17-year-old Claudia Escobedo of Bay Point.

Only four of the students said their parents had talked with them about the disease.

"They don't speak to their daughters about protecting themselves from AIDS," said an 18-year- old Bay Point woman who did not want her name used. "What they tell them is: `Don't practice sex.' "

One of the big obstacles is that talking about sex and AIDS is considered taboo in many Latino families.

"The information is very little that we get," Escobedo said. "The community doesn't think it is very important. They think that homosexuals get it. They don't think they have to worry about it."

In about two weeks, Alvarado will take the information she has gathered from the students and other Latinos she has surveyed at a Bible-study group, a community center and Byron Boys Ranch to a Latino focus group, which will choose a motto and logo for the Spanish-language campaign.

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