Pedro Zamora - Living With AIDS

Living With AIDS

In his junior year of high school, Zamora donated blood during a Red Cross blood drive, and received a letter a month and a half later saying that his blood tested "reactive", though it did not specify for what, as the general screening was for a variety of viruses and infections. Zamora initially denied his suspicions, but weeks later, he decided to be tested, and on November 9, 1989, the results confirmed that he had HIV.

Despite the devastation of his family at the news, he decided to redouble his efforts to graduate from high school before he died, though he did not give much thought to his health, as he was still in denial. He graduated high school in 1990, a year early. Five months later, he suffered a severe case of shingles that covered the entire right side of his body and face. With medication, the condition subsided after two months, but it inspired Zamora to join a Miami-based HIV/AIDS resource center called Body Positive, where he met others with HIV and AIDS, and educated himself about the disease, learning how to lead a positive life with it. Soon thereafter, he came to talk about his condition to others to attempt to raise awareness about the disease in his community.

Although his academic accomplishments could have gained him admission to very good colleges, Zamora decided to make a career as an AIDS educator. He began to lecture at schools of all levels, PTA meetings, churches, and anyone else who would listen, traveling the country, sitting on the boards of various AIDS organizations, and hoping to use what time he had left to prevent others from sharing his fate. At the age of 19, his work came into national focus when Eric Morganthaler wrote a front page article about him for the Wall Street Journal, resulting in talk show interviews by Geraldo Rivera, Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey. Though Zamora was gay, he chose to not make that explicit point to school children, preferring to emphasize to them that he got the disease through unprotected sex, so as to underscore the fact that both homosexuals and heterosexuals could contract HIV. On July 12, 1993, he testified before the United States Congress, arguing for more explicit HIV/AIDS educational programs, saying, “If you want to reach me as a young man – especially a young gay man of color – then you need to give me information in a language and vocabulary I can understand and relate to."

In 1993, Zamora met a fellow AIDS educator named Sean Sasser during a gay/lesbian march in Washington D.C., when both were involved with other people, and they became friends. The constant travel took its toll on Zamora, who at times was so tired that he was forced to cancel speaking engagements.