A few years later, the phone rang. It was another college friend from that summer of 1984, calling to tell me that Alberto was dead! He had died of AIDS that he had contracted from a blood transfusion. I couldn't believe it. A memorial to Alberto was put up on the grounds of NTID, and a photo appeared in the NTID Focus magazine.
From talking to others in this site's chat room, I have learned that AIDS is still quite a problem in the deaf community. In fact, in January 1998 there was a "HIV/AIDS Prevention for Deaf Adolescents" conference in Bozeman, Montana. Deaf people with limited language skills do not know much about AIDS, and this lack of knowledge is dangerous. I believe it. I myself did not learn what certain terms meant until I was 15 years old - whereas hearing kids learned them in kindergarten. I did not lack language skills - I was merely deaf.
In 1994, Time Magazine did a much-talked about article on AIDS in the deaf community. This article spelled out the results of lack of knowledge and understanding of AIDS in the deaf community.
Fortunately, there is plenty of information and help available for deaf people with AIDS and their friends and families. In California, there is a Deaf AIDS Center (3333 California Street, Suite 10, San Francisco, CA 94118), that offers preventive education, a videotape library, brochures and other educational materials, plus does outreach workshops. The Captioned Media Program has captioned AIDS materials.
