AIDS quilt to visit campus

Candlelight vigil Tuesday part of campus AIDS awareness campaign

By Sara Pacheco

A section of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt will be on display today from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Satellite Student Union as part of the World AIDS Day observance on campus.

“ Stigma and Discrimination” is this year’s theme for the Dec. 1-3 observance, sponsored by United Student Pride, the campus’s only lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender student organization.

Today’s quilt display is free and open to the public.

Talia Duran, USP program coordinator, said the quilt display will also involve two short ceremonies during the day.

Duran said speakers will talk about how Fresno State was able to get the section of the quilt on campus, along with why it is here, and the importance of having the quilt displayed locally.

The first ceremony will take place at 9:30 a.m., the second at 7:30 p.m.

A candlelight vigil was held Tuesday night in the Peace Garden in memory of those who have died of AIDS and those who are currently living with the disease.

Jeff Crew, a Fresno resident who attended the vigil, said his lover died of AIDS in 1993 when the AIDS quilt was beginning to get attention.

“ You wouldn’t believe how it affects people,” Crew said about the quilt. “It’s not just a personal issue. People always want to know, ‘Are you positive?’”

He’s not HIV positive. Crew said many of the misconceptions about AIDS and HIV continue to this day. He said it’s estimated that 995,000 people are living with AIDS in the United States.

But he stressed that the epidemic, now causing the deaths of thousands more in Africa, is no longer a gay issue.

“ It’s become an issue that is much bigger than a disease,” he said. “I think many people died unnecessarily.”

Crew said people with AIDS were marginalized so quickly in the 1980s and ‘90s, that it took time and effort to see that sufferers had the same rights as the rest of Americans.

An information and health fair was held Monday in the Free Speech Area and was attended by campus and off-campus organizations, including Saint Agnes Medical Center, University Medical Center, Planned Parenthood, and Central California Pride Network.

“ We’ve had an excellent turnout so far,” Duran said about attendance to the week’s events. She also said she looks forward to more people attending the events.

— Adrian Rodriguez contributed to this report.