Karl Schmid speaks with activist José Romero about Blind Angels and activism.

KARL
Making a difference for those living with HIV and being there for them, next. Welcome to Plus Talk on Plus Life where we’re all about turning positive into a plus. Today, my guest is Jose Romero and you may have seen him in the CNN documentary short features called “Blind Angels”. He appears in one of them set in North Carolina. Hey Jose, good to see you.

JOSÉ
Hey there. Good to see y’all.

KARL
I want to talk about this great CNN series called “Blind Angels”. You are an activist. You’re a healthcare strategist living with HIV , there in the south. So lots to talk about, but the series “Blind Angels”, what were your initial thoughts when you were approached to participate in this?

JOSÉ
Well, thank you for the question. I’ll admit that I didn’t know what the title was gonna be in advance, so don’t hold me accountable to that. But as you mentioned, I have been living, loving, and working in the south for the last several years. And in fact, my entire experience as somebody living with HIV has been as somebody living here in Durham. And the south has something to say. The south is the new epicenter of the HIV epidemic. And depending on who you ask, it’s always been the epicenter, right? And so, when we were first approached to take part in this work, what we really wanted to do was highlight the fact that, here in North Carolina, we are the birthplace of antiretroviral medication for so many community members here in the US and globally. Nevertheless, we still have a long way to go to end the HIV epidemic. And what it’s gonna take is relationships. And so, we wanted to share about our relationships here in North Carolina, my relationship to my good friend, Joaquin Carcano, who couldn’t be here today, but he actually gave me this hummingbird. So I feel like he’s here with me in spirit. And so is Marco Castro-Bojorquez, who was my mentor in a lot of this HIV work that I’ve been involved in.

KARL
So the series, as I said, it’s sort of a number of short documentary features on CNN. What do you hope audiences walk away with after they watch, not just yours, but the other great stories as well?

JOSÉ
Well, one thing that I would love for folks to walk away with is a desire to find a political home, to find people that you are gonna organize with and to commit to building one wherever you are because that’s what we’ve done here in Durham. We’ve built a community of people who have been showing up for each other when we don’t have cars to make it to our appointment, when we’re scared to go to the doctor for the first time. And in fact, in the episode, you’ll see Diego Lucas who works Familia Trans Queer Liberation Movement getting their blood drawn for the third time in their life. The first couple times were much earlier in their life in their infancy, so as an adult, this was their first time getting their blood drawn on camera as a part of this project of working together to build better healthcare outcomes for LatinX folks, all southerners, all people everywhere.

KARL
Yeah, and I felt bad watching it because they had to stick their arm a couple of times because there was some like, if you haven’t had your blood drawn, like this is the third time and then they’d jabbin’ at you. You talk about, you know, the American south is the new epicenter of the HIV pandemic. Why do you think the South, why do you think it is that this is really where HIV just is still exploding?

JOSÉ
Well, you know, that’s gonna depend on which community you’re working with. You know, shout out to the Black AIDS Institute, to THRIVE SS, Positive Woman’s Network. Some folks who have been on this series with you, talking about their work because they are people that we need to really pay attention to so that we can have these blueprints for what actually is going on here in the south. But some of the reasons include stigma. We have the most amount of HIV criminalization laws here on the books in the south, where just by being in the presence of somebody living with HIV, people can use that as grounds to incarcerate somebody and potentially deport them, right? If they aren’t a citizen in this country, right? Among other things, we also have transportation barriers. One of the earlier things that me and Joaquin would do was actually get a ride to our appointments together. I didn’t have a car. And so if I hadn’t had him around, I don’t know how I would’ve been able to pick up my medication earlier on. And here in the south, we have hospital closures. People have to go farther to find their people, find their healing. And that’s what, why we really wanted to share how important relationships are for this work.

KARL
Yeah, and in your particular episode, you guys talk about that chosen family, which, you know just sort of echoes what you’re saying now. You also describe your activism as searching for those that you’ve lost as a labor of love. You talk about how many people you’ve lost and that really inspires you, right?

JOSÉ
It does because you know, this work is soul wrenching work, right? To really be committed to change. And it requires sometimes engaging in conflict with people who you love, your family members, your uncle or aunt around the table, who might be stigmatizing people who share your own status. And they just might not know that, right. That’s something that so many people living with HIV know, right. Being able to actually be in principled struggle with people and say, “Hey, I want to take a stand. “And I wanna love certain people. “And I’m willing to do it at the expense of losing those “who wanna harm people I love.” That’s no small thing. And so when I talk about my activism as being searching for those who I’ve lost, it’s not that I haven’t found them. You know, I need to put my glasses back on. It’s that I actually think that we’ve been disconnected. We’ve been pushed apart by this stigma, by these the transportation barriers, right? Like housing, it’s getting harder to find housing. You’re on on the West Coast. Lord only knows how difficult that is, right? And all of this just translates into how we show up for each other. If you don’t have a house, if you don’t have food, if you’re worried about getting arrested or evicted, you might be stressed and that might make you more conflictual with people. And it might make you walk away from relationships that you need to stay healthy. And do we actually have to like each other to be able to work together, to achieve liberty, to achieve equity? I don’t know, but I know that we have to be able to show up for each other.

KARL
So in 2018, one in five people living with HIV identified as Latino. How do you think things have evolved or changed? And how are they different today in 2022?

JOSÉ
Well, I had mentioned Positive Woman’s Network and I want to highlight them because, in particular, what we see is that something that continues to haunt the HIV epidemic and even right now, right? We’re two ostensibly gay CIS men living with HIV, right? The narrative continues to be one around CIS men, often CIS gay men. And so women, Latino women have been left behind and mortality for Latino women living with HIV is one of the highest compared to other demographic groups. So, I’ve been really seeing a lack of concern for women in the epidemic. And in the series, folks can stay tuned and see a beautiful episode with wonderful kindred of mine, Antoinette from Atlanta, who’s gonna be sharing about her journey, her journey building a family as somebody who’s pos, because this happens right. And it’s worthwhile and beautiful.

KARL
Yeah and you know, part of your activism includes being that hand to hold. Who held your hand, whose hand did you get to hold on to when you were navigating your HIV status, getting told over the phone, being told you should probably get that sorted out? And I think you went jogging.

JOSÉ
Yeah, yeah, that might not make sense, right? If you see it outta a context but I had this practice of hanging out with a friend of mine, Sarah Craig, who’s a yoga instructor in Philadelphia. And we just happened to be together when I got this phone call from a provider who had been stigmatizing me for admitting that I was having sex with other men. And he just told me like, “Hey I think you have HIV “and you should probably come in.” And I said, “I’m not able to come in.” He’s like, “Oh, well, we’ll go find another doctor.” And then hung up on me. Which you know, that was that story. And so I was clearly distraught and my friend, Sarah Craig definitely held my hand, but it wasn’t until I met somebody named Marco Castro-Bojorquez, who I mentioned before, that I really saw myself in the movement. He taught me to love hummingbirds because they work so tirelessly. It almost looks like they’re levitating because they’re working so hard. And there are people in this movement who have been doing that tireless work and not getting that recognition. People like Waheedah Shabazz, Venita Ray, Marco, Andrew Spieldenner, like all of these different beautiful folks who have in different ways, Barb Cardell, who recently celebrated a birthday, right? Who have, Julio from Aids United, people who reach out, this community that takes care of each other. Those are people who hold my hands. I’m missing some other folks, all of the beautiful people at the SARO Project, right? Which Kamaria, Tammy, you know, Kevin, all of these folks have shown up for me when I’ve needed them. And I think that that’s why I really love to focus on chosen family because at the end of the day, those are the folks that are gonna get us through whatever we need to.

KARL
Well, we are for sure, glad that you’re out there holding hands and being chosen by people to be part of their family and taking care of each other. Jose Romero, thank you so much for your time. Lovely to see you, lovely to see your purple and I and this will make no sense to anyone else but I owe you some tater tots. That is gonna do it for this episode of Plus Talk. If you want more information about Jose Romero and what they do and wanna get involved, perhaps offer your services, be a friend, just check out our website, PlusLiveMedia.com. We’ll put all the information up on there as well as Jose’s social information, so you can check him out. That will do it for today until next time, take care, wash your hands, smile, be kind and remember, you can turn positive into a plus.