A Place to Call Home (Feature) Justice Department Releases Excerpts of Wen Ho Lee Report (in National News) Ex-Dot-Commers Make the Move to Teaching (in Bay Area News) Get Ready for Cyberwars (in Business) Your Dream Vacation - Softball? (in Sports) Surf's Up (in A&E) Emil Amok: No Evidence of Racism? (in Opinion)

Coming Home: Learning to Live with HIV

By Vince Crisostomo

I tested positive for HIV in May of 1989. At the time, I didn’t know anything about the disease and I didn’t totally understand how it was spread. There had been a rumor in the ’80s that Asians didn’t get HIV and my friends and I didn’t know anybody with HIV.

Once I learned about the disease, I knew immediately where I had gotten it, because I had only practiced unsafe sex with one person. After my partner died in October 1991, I really didn’t think I had much time left. I wanted to do something meaningful, so I decided to do work in HIVawareness — because if it could happen to me, then it could happen to anyone. I thought I’d do this for two or three years at the most. Instead, it’s been nearly ten.

When the health service provider first told me I was HIV-positive, I asked if I was going to die. He said I could expect to live for two years at the most. I had to get my act together. I was 28 and hadn’t figured out what I was going to do with my life. Then I thought, “Am I going to die, and never love or have a significant relationship?”

All of these things went through my head, but everything I thought I would never experience, I have experienced. I consider myself incredibly lucky and incredibly blessed. I used to think, “Oh my god, we are dying!” But now, I think, “Maybe we are not dying, maybe we are just living and we are doing a better job of it because we think we are dying.”

And that has been a shift that has happened in the last year. I say to myself, “You know Vince, you are not dying, you are actually living. But you need to figure out what to do, to keep doing this without getting so tired.” I found that I needed to take care of myself and not push my body past its point of exhaustion. In the past, I tried to do all the things I needed to before I died. It never occurred to me that I might still be here to see 2001. In learning to live with HIV, I have learned to live with myself.

I was in love with the person who infected me and thought he was in love with me, and that we would live happily ever after. I thought that if someone loved you, they wouldn’t hurt you. But I learned you need to be responsibile for yourself and what you contribute in every situation. When I was younger, I used to be pig-headed. People would tell me things and I wouldn’t listen. They tried to educate me about HIV/AIDS and I wouldn’t listen. I never thought it would happen to me: it was not my problem. Had I more information or bothered to pay attention, I would have known.

When you work in HIV awareness, it goes against everything Asians and Pacific Islanders are taught. We are taught not to talk about sex, homosexuality, gender issues, illness or death. We are supposed to keep those things inside. But Asian Pacific Islander Americans do have sex. Unfortunately, knowledge about safe sex may not translate into actual skills that they can use to protect themselves.

In my own life, I no longer wait for things to become problems. I was almost dead before I realized I needed to do something about my health. What I have learned over the last 10 years is that when problems arise, you need to deal with them.

Now that I have returned home to Guam, I hope to build a community of people committed to educating awareness to ensure that this disease does not spread in our communities. I want to find people who are willing to care and provide compassion for people who might be dying. I want to see a community in the Pacific that is united to respond to this disease, not because they are paid to, or the government mandates it, but because they want to. And I see it as my role to motivate them and act as a bridge to bring the resources that will make that possible.

When I look at my life and what I have created for myself, I am happy. Going back to Guam is embracing a lot of discomfort, and giving up everything I knew in California. But something inside says I need to do this, and this is the time. In some way, I feel like a success story among people living with AIDS because I get to go home — and I get to do work that affects so many people’s lives.

Vince Crisostomo left San Francisco in January 2001 to become Executive Director of the Coral Life Foundation, Guam’s only HIV/AIDS organization after eight years with Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center.