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Reaching out to Latino MSMMichigan HIV News, Fall 2001 IssueAs everyone in HIV/AIDS prevention extends beyond his or her comfort level to reach out to those at highest risk, the spotlight has recently focused on Hispanic men who have sex with men (MSM) at several ASO’s in Michigan.Three organizations have started outreach to Latino MSM in the past year, the Midwest AIDS Prevention Project (MAPP), The Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation, and Hispanics Against AIDS (HAA). Also, AIDS Partnership Michigan (APM) held a special program in Southwest Detroit in May, Latinos contra el Sida, to inform participants about the state of the HIV epidemic in the Latino community. Francisco Michel has been an HIV prevention consultant in association with MDCH - HAPIS for the past four years. Michigan HIV News talked with him this summer about the recent outreach to Latino MSM by several Michigan agencies. The last two years have seen Latino MSM increasingly become a center of attention for HIV prevention. MAPP’s La Comunidad program was one of the first programs targeting Latino MSM specifically. “ In the past, several agencies provided MSM interventions to Latinos, but in a less formal way as part of their broader programs with MSM,” said Michel. An example of this is Community AIDS Resources and Education Services (CARES). Juan Billion-Rivera, who has been a prevention specialist there for four years, said that he is the only bi-lingual outreach worker in the region. He does both MSM outreach and migrant farm worker outreach, and has been doing MSM outreach that has included Latinos for about two years. CARES began in bars and has expanded to rest stops and public parks; and CARES is now going into Chat rooms on the Internet. There are people who have been frustrated, feeling that not enough attention has been paid to Hispanics, said Michel. But the reality is the majority of the epidemic in Michigan is among blacks, who are 14% of the population and 62% of those reported living with HIV (not AIDS). And while the rate of cases is three times that for Hispanics, the actual number of reported HIV (not AIDS) cases among blacks is almost 20 times that of Hispanics. So it’s difficult, he said, with limited resources for it to appear to some
that there is parity. It is difficult to place a high priority on targeting
Latino MSM in Michigan with the dollars available for prevention, according to
Michel. With Hispanics only 3% of the Michigan population it is sometimes harder to reach this smaller population with intervention. It makes prevention work more difficult, even when there is money. “Compared to other states, we have a smaller Hispanic population. This makes it more difficult in terms of targeting – unlike LA where there are large pockets of Hispanics,” said Michel. “The population is much more identifiable there. Especially for populations
like MSM, I think it’s easier to target prevention, than a place like southwest
Detroit, for instance. Some people may consider this a barrio, but it’s a pretty
diverse neighborhood, compared to Hispanic neighborhoods in New York City or
LA.” Hispanics Against AIDS (HAA) is the first organization to reach out specifically to Latino MSM on the west side of the state. This past year, through the initiative of two board members, Jesus Jaime and Tony Peña, HAA has been exploring the needs of the invisible community with the Hispanic population, Latino MSM. HAA was approached by a the national Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Organization - LLEGO - to provide their training. LLEGO is funded by the CDC to provide capacity building training and technical assistance for agencies that want to provide outreach to the gay Latino communities. Teresa Cruz said she and several board members were invited to a workshop/focus group put on by LLEGO and the Midwest Hispanic AIDS Coalition in Chicago. These two groups were looking for feedback from CBOs to see what the issues were in the local Hispanic communities. In Chicago, Cruz learned of the need for empowerment programs for the Latino/a gay, lesbian and transgender community. “I am just shocked that I was not even aware of the Latino gay community here in Grand Rapids,” said Cruz. With assistance from Jaime and Peña in writing the proposal, HAA now has a grant from the Michigan AIDS Fund (MAF) to address the needs for Latino MSM. This summer HAA began training Latino MSM in outreach and intervention this summer with the program called Cultura es Vida. “Once they identify more people, then they can do the empowerment training.” These new board members have promoted HAA to the local Latino gay community
as a non-judgmental place; and HAA had no trouble in recruiting members from the
community for the training. They also recruited the new part-time outreach
worker, Jesse Ramos. For more information, call HAA at 616-742-4280. The Midwest AIDS Prevention Project (MAPP) is targeting gay Latinos with prevention though its program called La Communidad. CEO, Craig Covey saw the need to organize this community for HIV prevention and community building. MAPP held a focus group last summer to assess the needs of Latino MSM. Michael Flores and Victor Oliveros have coordinated the new program since it began in October 2000. Flores was recruited from one of the first events held by La Communidad. Flores, a native of Texas, is a 20-year old Junior at the University of Detroit Mercy. While he has recently come “out” to his Michigan friends, he has not approached the subject yet with his family in Texas. He is a first generation American, Catholic and bi-lingual. “We were not allowed to speak English at home,” said Flores. So he appreciates this special outreach that is culturally specific. “Coming into La Communidad,” he told the Metro Times, “I knew there were going to be people just like me, who are Latin, who are gay and who dealt with the same issues of religion and culture and family.” Flores was new to HIV/AIDS prevention and intervention work when he came to MAPP. He has since been trained through the updated American Red Cross Hispanic HIV/AIDS instructor program as well as the MDCH - HAPIS HIV test counselor program. In addition he attended the Cultura es Vida training in Grand Rapids. La Communidad reaches out to gay Latinos through planned social events and a monthly support group at MAPP. “Everything that we are doing now is social advocacy and community building,” said Flores. “As we build up our member base, we will continue with our mission and be more intervention oriented.” This summer MAPP hired two additional part time staff , Janiel Moises Perez from Lansing and Ricky Felicicano from Detroit, so the program can expand to other areas in Michigan. "We are very excited about this new statewide initiative to organize the gay and bisexual Latino community....the support for this has been universal...and we think our 3 new Latino outreach workers are going to be well-received indeed,” said Covey. ”We are collaborating with agencies in Flint, Lansing, and Grand Rapids to begin to reach this growing and at-risk population. And in Detroit we have developed a close relationship with the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation. Our activities will promote community-building, self-esteem, communication, and health promotion,” he said. For more information, call MAPP (248) 545-1435. Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation also does prevention outreach to MSM. Roberto Alvarez was hired this summer as an outreach worker. Alvarez is from Houston and has been living in the Detroit area for three years. He will target MSM as well as high-risk heterosexuals. One of his first tasks has been creating flyers in Spanish tailored specifically to the Detroit Hispanic community. Michel said the congregation of Latino MSM in metro Michigan cities is not as easily accessed by prevention providers as it is in larger cosmopolitan areas. “And that makes the work more difficult, because it’s not like you can just show up to do a bar outreach to Latino MSM,” said Michel. “And there are other cultural issues. There’s less of a gay identification, and much more heterosexually self-defined men who have sex with men sometimes. “Especially if they are the active partner. These men are that much more
difficult to reach. You are not going to be able to provide a gay message….You
are not going to be able to use materials that are explicitly homo-erotic and
have these be really effective with men who don’t identify as gay. I don’t think
that’s unique to Hispanics, it’s probably just more so than with other racial or
ethnic groups.” According to a report released in August by the Policy Institute of the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, current HIV prevention methods do not
adequately address social and cultural factors that can contribute to increased
risk for HIV infection While it is clear that black MSM are leading the statistics of new HIV
infections in Michigan, this new outreach to Latino MSM may be an important
intervention to prevent rates rising among the Hispanic population in Michigan,
which according to the 2000 census is growing. While the percentage of reported
persons living with AIDS and HIV in the Hispanic population is still low, the
rate is over 300% that for whites. |
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