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A medical conference, Rock Hudson and… Dolly Parton? Alina Oswald’s path to HIV and AIDS advocacy was a little unorthodox. But again and again, she kept encountering signs that she should devote her attention to HIV and AIDS and the LGBTQ+ community. Indeed she did, working as a journalist and photographer for two community-based magazines and becoming a true ally in the process.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:07
Hello. My name is Alina Oswald. I’m from Valcea, Romania.
00:12
In 1986, my mother, who was an infectious disease doctor, invited me to join her in
00:20
attending a conference in Bucharest, Romania. The dean of the university showed and he started
00:28
to talk about this then-new disease, HIV and AIDS.
00:34
I was fascinated by the slideshows. I remember this very bright orange red type of slideshow
00:45
showing the virus, you know, traveling through the human body and basically causing so much
00:54
destruction.
00:55
At the end of the session, my mom asked me to “What did… what did you think?”
01:01
You know, and I… I was… I could only say “Interesting.” What I found… I found
01:07
out years down the road… years down the road, years later was that mom wanted me to
01:13
go to medical – to medical school, right, to study medicine, then to follow in my parents’
01:19
footsteps.
01:20
Afterwards, I went back home. And what happened? Well, Chernobyl happened. It puts the AIDS
01:29
conference and everything I felt about it on the back burner. It was completely out
01:36
of mind, out of sight. There are other things to pay attention to at the time.
01:41
You know, a few weeks, a month after Chernobyl, I’m not exactly sure, I found this French
01:48
magazine. On the cover. It was Rock Hudson. And this is 86, right? So I opened the magazine
01:57
to the Rock Hudson story, and I remember as if it were – was today… a two-spread picture
02:05
of Hudson. On the left side, it was the, you know, film noire type of headshot, you know,
02:14
Hollywood glamour shot kind of… kind of picture. On their right side, it was this
02:22
guy that seemed like a hundred years old or something.
02:27
And I read the whole story. They were mentioning, you know, his passing from AIDS-related causes
02:34
and all that stuff. Until that time I took the AIDS conference with mom and Rock Hudson,
02:40
the reading the Rock Hudson story, I had… until that moment, I had never heard, you
02:49
know, about HIV and AIDS.
02:51
Life moved on. I’m moved on. I had to… started to get into college. I didn’t go to medical
02:58
school. I moved to America. Fast forward to 2003… 2003 found me just married and in
03:14
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
03:16
I was walking – it was a beautiful sunny day. And I was looking through Harvard Square.
03:21
I don’t know why I was in Harvard Square, but it’s a beautiful place. I walked through
03:25
this newsstand, and I suppose something gold and shiny that kind of caught my eye. I literally
03:31
had to… I remember I literally had to kind of step backwards and kind of look. And what
03:36
it was, I saw this cover, magazine cover with Dolly Parton on it! And it said A & U, like,
03:44
A, U, right? And right tiny words underneath where it’s like America’s AIDS magazine.
03:50
The memories of my, you know, joining mom then retaining that day at the conference
03:56
about HIV and AIDS, all of those things came back to me and they hit me pretty hard. I
04:01
had to pay attention to it. And I thought I have to write for these guys. I didn’t know
04:08
how, I didn’t know what to do. I had to contact them. I pitched the editor, like, you know,
04:16
I queried the magazine and he got back to me and that was surprising in itself.
04:23
So I started pitching stories on a regular basis and that I got to learn a lot of, you
04:31
know, stories, survivors,, activists, artists… they trusted me with their stories that I’ve
04:37
learned through those stories quite a lot.
04:40
In 2003, then we moved to Jersey city and in 2006, I found Out in Jersey magazine at
04:52
Jersey City Pride. And of course I. I talked to them, I grabbed a copy of a magazine, ‘cause
05:00
they have like a sample copies there, and I started to write for them too. That added
05:06
to do the layers in the kinds of stories that are selling because I got to understand more
05:14
and connect more with the LGBTQ+ community related to HIV and aids and not related to
05:23
HIV.
05:24
So I was this thing my folks in Romania and I was having this one-on-one conversation
05:31
with mom and I showed her that the work that I was doing, I was writing and photography,
05:36
covering in the community. And I showed her the work and said, “Mom, this is because
05:40
of you. It’s because of you because you introduced me to this topic really way back
05:47
when in 1986.” And I think – I think I even I thank her for that.
05:53
She said, “Well, the pin wasn’t like that! The plan was for you to go to medical school.”
06:01
I think she was happy for me and she was, you know… I hope she was proud of me too.
06:09
Although, you know, there was not much… much praising going on.
06:14
I found a home… in a way, ended up with home within the community, for which I am
06:22
grateful. I get to work with people that are amazing.
06:25
And I hope by being able to tell those stories, then kind of forward the stories to other
06:34
people, maybe more people will get to know the community,
06:40
Being allies, we can support in particular these individuals who might not have anyone
06:49
to talk to. If being allies, if we don’t give them the feeling of hope, at least we
06:56
can give them the idea that hope is there and don’t give up because someone is there
07:01
for you and they… they’re there for you, they support you, and you know, we can relate
07:07
to you. We can, you know, you can trust and you share this story with us.
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video
