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Junior,
1995.
Junior
August 3, 1995
Junior's Apartment
Upper Tenderloin, San Francisco
Junior's younger brother Bunso is present.
Right now, IĀm planning to go home in December. I might do a performance in my old school. I haven't mentioned it to my mom. I don't know if it will be a good idea, even for myself. The people who've spoken up before, most of them women, there's about three of them, the news people made films out of their lives. I'm afraid that if I go home, they'll pay my relatives to sell my story.
Bunso: What if they ask you to play yourself?
Junior: No, I won't! I'm still thinking about doing it for Christmas. I've already started writing out the materials. I have to weigh the consequences once I do that. It would be a big relief because I don't have to watch myself. But for my relatives who end up staying there, they have to deal with it the rest of their lives. People will talk about them and maybe even condemn them.
MW: Do you feel like you would be in any danger?
Junior: My family might get death threats and kick me out because I'm a danger. Maybe the people will kill me, but I know they will learn a lot. I would rather the medical doctors take care of the details of how you get HIV. I'll just tell them that I'm HIV positive and these are the consequences, the effect of being HIV positive in my life. Over there we don't talk about sex. I want people to know where they can get information if they have questions about STDs, and condoms. I never saw a condom until I moved here. I was embarrassed to even read the labels in the store. I think if I were better informed then I wouldn't become HIV positive.
The first thing I learned about being HIV positive is you can't tell by looking at the person. I'm meeting more and more people, and if I look at them, if I were to have sex with them unprotected, there's no sign that they're HIV positive. That's something that I would like people to understand. For a year I had HIV, but they didn't even know, because I can pretend. And I can lie. I can say I'm HIV negative, and you'll believe me, right? If I do the performance in December, after that I don't want to deal with anything about HIV because I'd like to move on. So, I have five months to decide. I was thinking I could perform for four nights, so more people can see me. Most of the teenagers there know me. If they see an actual person that they know, then I think it has a bigger impact.
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