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March 12, James Pedro, a 21-year-old
national HIV/AIDS speaker, spoke to Stanley County and Pierre Indian Learning
Center students to raise awareness and educate them about HIV. The South Dakota
Urban Indian Health organization sponsored the event through a grant from the
US Department of Health and Human Services. Pedro shared his life story of
growing up while taking care of his single mother who had been diagnosed with
HIV/AIDS.
Pedro was born in California in 1992
to a 20-year-old college student mother who had contracted HIV from a boyfriend
after Pedro’s father had left them. In the 1990s, an HIV diagnosis amounted to
a death sentence. “The main stigma was that it happens to people who are
sharing needles and are drug addicts. It happens to people who are gay,” Pedro
said. However, Pedro stated that anyone can get HIV, stressing that HIV is
present in every US state, and that every 9.5 seconds, someone is infected. He
declared that the idea “it will never happen to me” accounts for 94 percent of
all new HIV cases worldwide. One in five people who are living with HIV are
unaware that they have it.
When his mother’s adopted parents
discovered that their daughter was HIV-infected, they disowned her; thus, she
had to live on her own. Pedro’s mother devoted her life to raising him. Pedro’s
grandmother invited them to live with her. As a four-year-old, Pedro understood
that his mother was sick, but her illness seemed normal to him. When he was a
bit older, he found that others were afraid of his mother because of her
illness. Thanks to his grandmother, Pedro quickly learned to cook and clean; by
the age of eight, Pedro was able to take care of his mother, even at her worst.
His mother learned to live with her illness.
Today Pedro is a professional dancer
living in Tulsa, Okla., with his mother who has since had two more children,
both of whom were born without HIV. Soon Pedro will attend the Kansas City Art
Institute. He enjoys the culinary arts, beginning when he learned to cook as a
small child who took care of his mother. He particularly likes traditional
Native American foods. Pedro also gets tested for HIV on a regular basis and
encourages others to do the same.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
