Educational Resources
This section includes guiding questions and potential themes designed to provide teachers and educators, as well as other community leaders, with numerous educational resources to facilitate conversations about traditional understandings of HIV/AIDS and the silences embedded within this illness.
General Timeline
A general timeline of the events that comprise a hegemonic understanding of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States are included in the attached Google Doc. Most of the quantitative data, such as dates and number of AIDS-related deaths, derives from HIV.gov, an official government website managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Due to the ways in which government agencies have managed and disseminated select information regarding the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States, state-sanctioned forms of knowledge production are interrogated through the inclusion of differential perspectives directly impacted by HIV/AIDS. Narrated from the vantage of queer, HIV-positive Latinxs, these spoken and written testimonies demonstrate the significance of imagining beyond the existing archive to transform HIV-positive bodies into legitimate sites of knowledge.
Discussion Questions
Which voices are highlighted in the general information made available through the timeline and how do these narratives reproduce existing relations of power in a historical archive?
How does the inclusion of distinctive perspectives, including Alberto Sandoval-Sánchez’s testimonio and written scholarship from other queer, HIV-positive Latinxs, offer a more wholistic view of the HIV/AIDS epidemic?
What is the significance of resisting silences in the archival process through the insertion of alternative sources?
What are some methods and practices that could be developed among predominantly Latinx communities to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and advocate for the inclusion of HIV-positive individuals in various community-based efforts?
Activities
Write a brief letter to Alberto Sandoval-Sánchez. Following your exploration of Latinxs and HIV/AIDS: Resisting Silences in the Personal Collection of Alberto Sandoval-Sánchez and the adjunct resources, what questions about HIV/AIDS are you continuing to contemplate ? What impacted you the most about his story?
Imagine you are designing an archive in an attempt to document the rapidly changing landscape of your community. What objects (i.e., photograph, document, testimonio, map, video, etc.) would you include in your archive? Who should assume a critical role in the archival decision-making process? How can you ensure that queer, HIV-positive community members are included in your intended story?