I was born in Nicaragua but grew up in Los Angeles, California and Miami, Florida. It was my grandmother who raised me as a young boy in Nicaragua as my mother immigrated to the United States. After a few years, I eventually followed her to L.A.

As a young adult I felt uncomfortable using a condom when I had sex. I had not educated myself about the HIV/AIDS virus. I really didn't care about it because I didn’t think it would affect me. I figured that AIDS was a "GAY" disease or for those who were using drugs intravenously.

As a former gang member leader, I used to have many girls around me. I never realized that HIV would affect me, until one day in March 1990, when I went to get tested and reality set in. I was diagnosed as being HIV positive.

Living with HIV and now "AIDS" has affected my entire life. Emotionally and physically I began to change. My relations with friends turned around, my ideas of marriage and having a family has taken a new perspective. I really want to have a wife and family.

In the past, I never got involved in helping others. I changed my life by taking on a new and positive direction. I used to be a "bad boy", now I'm not! I will do my best to help reduce one's exposure to HIV by providing the needed education I never got. I will educate others until the day I die.

I wish to learn new and different things about the HIV Immigration Law. I never felt quite as good as the day I received my "Green Card" from the US. I now feel as I belong here. It was a four year struggle. Thank God and thanks to the many people who helped me.

I'm a Person Living With AIDS (PLWA). I am also a Hispanic Catholic heterosexual young man who acts as a group leader for various organizations, both locally and nationally in the effort of educating others. I look for all types of AIDS newsletters (English & Spanish) and distribute them to various organizations in my community. I am trying to get medication for the AIDS community in third world countries.

I never really had a mother and father I could talk to. When I arrived in the United States, I grew up all by myself in the streets of Los Angeles and Miami. I am now a long term AIDS survivor. I have many concerns including dating one who is not HIV positive. I am looking forward to having a wife and baby in the future so I can be happy before I die.

I can talk to you about the bad and good things in my life. I have dedicated my life to educating the Hispanic Community. I want to let them know the consequences of high risk behavior.

I take pride in having completed High School, even though my home was the streets of downtown Miami. I am proud of having graduated and fulfilling a promise that I had long ago made to my mother and grandmother.

I now belong to many national AIDS organizations. I get their newsletters, magazines, and constant information on AIDS both in English and Spanish.

Alberto Jose Perez Bermudez 
AIDS Activist, Educator & Long Term Survivor 
PWA Hispanic Youth & Heterosexual Group Leader