New York, NY —
Today marks World AIDS Day. It’s a time to commemorate victims of the epidemic and take stock of the fight against it around the world. Here in New York, the city estimates that over 100,000 people are living with HIV, and there are 4,000 new AIDS diagnoses each year. The stigma that prevents people from dealing openly with HIV can be especially strong for recent immigrants. WNYC’s Siddhartha Mitter reports.
REPORTER: On a recent evening at the African Services Committee in Harlem, a group of men and women from Africa and the Caribbean came together to talk about a difficult topic – HIV and AIDS in the immigrant community.
LUCY: Everything changed to my body, to my brain, to myself. ... I could not see myself Lucy. I could see HIV on me.
REPORTER: "Lucy" is from Kenya. She is not using her real name because she is just beginning to tell people she is HIV positive. She is in her early fifties. She says she got the virus from a boyfriend in Kenya. But she only found out two years ago, after she went to Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn with a raft of symptoms. After the diagnosis she became deeply depressed.
LUCY: From that day I used to go to the bathroom to bathe, I could bathe for three hours and I could not get clean. Once I get out of the bathroom I see HIV on me. So I hated myself very much...
REPORTER: Lucy first came to New York to work for an American family. But they moved overseas and she decided to stay. When she got diagnosed, she was alone, renting a room in Brooklyn from a Trinidadian woman. That arrangement didn’t last.
LUCY: She was asking me why I am seeing the doctor every once a week. I could not tell her why. And one day she said she can no longer live with me, and she sent me out of her house.
REPORTER: The only person Lucy felt she could call was a nurse who had been kind to her at the hospital.
LUCY: I told her I lose my job, my friend sent me out of the house, I don’t know where to go, I scared. And she told me ... come here ... my husband will pick you up. From that day, up to today I am talking with you, I am with that lady. She is from Haiti ... she is my best friend and she has helped me to go through everything.
REPORTER: At the meeting in Harlem, David Sirjusingh listened intently to what Lucy had to say. After she was done, he put his arm around her and took her aside. He recognized her story.
DAVID: It sadden my heart to hear what she has been through. You don’t have to be carrying this burden around all the time.
REPORTER: David is living openly with HIV. When he contracted the virus in his native Trinidad, his neighbors and even his family shunned him. When he helped form an organization for people with HIV and AIDS, his house was attacked and he received death threats. He fled to the United States and filed for asylum. But the stigma followed.
DAVID: So here I was working in a restaurant because a friend got the job for me, and his sister knows me, and calls and say that you know, he have AIDS. And they called and told the restaurant and say he have AIDS and stuff like that. And I was like, I left Trinidad and I came here to start a new life, and it’s the same old thing…
REPORTER: David too was thrown out of the place he was staying. But he managed to find help. His asylum came through. Now he has a job and he’s in good health.
KONATE: God is there for everybody. Being HIV positive is not the end of the world.
REPORTER: Souleymane Konate was among a group of faith leaders listening to Lucy and David. He is the imam of Masjid Aqsa mosque in Harlem. Imams and pastors are often the first resource for recent immigrants who need help and don’t know where to look. Konate knows HIV needs more attention in the community. He tells the story of a call he recently got from a fellow imam.
KONATE: He was saying that there is a young brother from Africa here, and only you can help that brother to solve his problem. I was like, what kind of problem is that? They say we’re not going to tell you on the phone ... The next day he came, and he told me he was HIV positive…
REPORTER: Konate counseled the young man and referred him to African Services. And he also made an appeal for him at the mosque.
KONATE: What I did, I collect some money from the congregation. A thousand dollars.
REPORTER: But when he rasied the money, Konaté never used the words HIV or AIDS. He just said there was a young man who was sick.
KONATE: Because you know that in our community as Africans we need to keep things secret... If I say that, you know, based on stigma and everything, people are gonna say we’re not gonna be part of that.
RAMATU: Secrecy is part of the culture. …
REPORTER: Ramatu Ahmed lives in the Bronx; she’s the secretary of an association of Muslims from Ghana. She deplores the stigma around AIDS, but according to her, too much openness can go against African values.
RAMATU: For instance when you go to Africa and someone commits a crime and he’s jailed, if you ask the family members where is Musa, or where is Mohammed, they won’t tell you he’s in jail. They will tell you, Oh, he has traveled!... T39 So when it comes to AIDS just imagine how that will be.
REPORTER: Ramatu hasn’t quite cast off the sense that HIV is a shameful subject. And though she wants churches and mosques to give away condoms, she says they should be placed somewhere people can pick them up without being seen. Lucy says that at the church she attends, the topic is taboo.
LUCY: Sometimes when they talk and sing and dance and do whatever they are doing I always like to ask one person why you never talk about HIV and AIDS here.
REPORTER: But she hasn’t asked – for fear of revealing herself. She hopes that will change soon. She wants to tell her best friend from church that she is HIV positive.
LUCY: I’m trying to let her know but I cannot do it. I’m praying God, I want to do it, I really want to do it, but there is something. I don’t know what I can say, I’m scared
REPORTER: Lucy, David and Imam Konaté all say that by now, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has spread so much in their home countries that people there can no longer avoid speaking frankly about it. They hope immigrants living here will catch up soon.
REPORTER: For WNYC, I’m Siddhartha Mitter.