‘Pueblo chico, infierno grande’

Abstract

In this article, we present an aspect of our ethnographic investigation with HIV-positive Latin Americans living in Japan. In order to investigate the relationship between HIV/AIDS and community support among HIV carriers, we interviewed 20 male HIV-positive Latin Americans living in Japan. From April to September 2002 and in August 2003 and 2004, we conducted a set of six 60-minute interviews with 20, 28-37-year-old HIV-positive males. Three of them were illegal aliens and seven of them claimed to be homosexual. Participants were contacted through a hospital, a non-government organization (NGO), and by snowball sampling. The analysis of the interviews indicates that informants did not find any community support. Informants were fully aware that the psychological pressure from the community affected negatively their CD4-count and viral load. Our analysis suggests three main issues concerning the ways our informants relate to their community: non-attachment, invisibility and under-representation. Serostatus, social class, sexual preference, ethnicity and legal status were referred to as barriers to freely associating within the community.