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In Lincoln Park, past Plaza de la Raza cultural center and under swaying pine trees, stands a row of 10-foot wooden panels etched with names.Robert Zaldivar stood quietly in front of the names, surrounded by community members holding lit candles as memories of old friends resurfaced.
The panels bear nearly 2,000 names, and more are added every year.Each one represents an Angeleno, mostly Latinos, who died of AIDS.
Zaldivar led the movement to erect this monument, named the Wall Las Memorias, which was finalized in 2004.Inspired by his late best friend, who was HIV-positive, the Wall represents to Zaldivar the power of remembering those in his community affected by HIV and AIDS.
It was designed in the shape of Quetzalcoatl, or the “Feathered Serpent,” an Aztec deity and symbol of rebirth.That day in early June, he hosted a sunset vigil, joined by AIDS Memorial Quilt founder and Harvey Milk mentee Cleve Jones, to recognize the lives lost since AIDS was first diagnosed 45 years prior, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report detailing immunodeficiency in five young gay men in Los Angeles.
At Zaldivar’s feet was a poem, one he wrote in 1995 with his friend Anna Contreras.It reads:It is here, we free ourselves from the teaching of guilt.We unite as one people in our vision, our teaching, and our truth.Through truth we live, through knowledge we survive.Contending with stigma and misinformation has been a constant struggle for people who are HIV-positive, he said, a struggle that Zaldivar hopes to make more visible now than it has been in previous decades.“Sometimes it feels like there’s no other way to draw attention to this problem than to have a physical reminder,” Zaldivar said of the monument.
“This reminds us of real people, as more than statistics.”The statistics Zaldivar refers to include the continuing rise in HIV diagnoses in ...