ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a short history of the early AIDS epidemic in the San Francisco Bay area as it affected Asian and Pacific Islander communities. This history was one of multiple struggles for visibility: first, to be acknowledged by researchers and funders as communities with real risks for HIV and, second, against monocultural stereotypes. In 1987, the Asian AIDS project was the first organization to get a small amount of funding to provide AIDS services for Asian Americans. Nevertheless, many Asians believed these early articles that denied the existence of AIDS among Asian Americans. Homosexuality also represents deviant and disapproved sexual behavior. This combination of disapproval and stigmatization may lead many gay, lesbian, and bisexual Asian Americans to hide their sexual identities. That organization was forced to retreat from its hegemonic AIDS education role in the face of criticism that it was too narrow in its staff and leadership base to provide education for all.
