ABSTRACT
AIDS is an issue which often causes good people to brand others as sinners, instead of focusing on the virus itself. It often intensifies homophobia and forces us to explicitly talk about drugs, sex, and sex workers who are often poor and vulnerable men and women, who rent their bodies for money. As with most chronic illnesses and disabling conditions, if one is not already poor before becoming a person with AIDS, one will become poor in a few years unless one is part of the privileged and wealthy elite. The disease has hit Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, and other Latinos, African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities especially hard. Furthermore, it is essential to look at AIDS within a cultural context, to share and encourage research that addresses AIDS and minority populations, and to assess prevention, education and behavioral change strategies from culturally specific and relevant perspectives. Self-assessed knowledge about AIDS also varies with education.
