By Evelyn Bailey
“We are at war against AIDS. Our front-line soldiers are PWAs (People With AIDS), and we will win this war in time. Our troops are being betrayed by enemies in the federal bureaucracy.”
These are the words of Martin Kazu Hiraga, spoken in April, 1988. Martin was an energetic young man, with a warm smile, a huge heart, and the spark of life and justice that moved him into a position of leadership in the Rochester gay community.
Martin was a co-organizer of Rochester ACT-UP (The AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power), and along with many others, was outraged in 1988 by the presidential candidates’ silence on AIDS issues. ACT UP Rochester and New York City planned a militant, non-violent demonstration at the Democratic presidential debates in Rochester on April 16 and 17, 1988.
Martin had been political since he was a teenager. His first arrest for civil disobedience was at age 13 at the DuPont plant where they were manufacturing defoliants during the Vietnam war. In July, 1987, Martin demonstrated against Cardinal John O’Connor’s appointment to the President’s Commission on the HIV Epidemic at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.
ACT UP was founded in 1987. ACT UP was committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis, and their demands included better access to drugs as well as cheaper prices, public education about AIDS and the prohibition of AIDS-related discrimination. On March 24, 1987, ACT UP held their first mass demonstration on Wall Street. The first recognized cases of AIDS occurred in the USA in the early 1980s.
A number of gay men in New York and California suddenly began to develop rare opportunistic infections and cancers that seemed stubbornly resistant to any treatment. At this time, AIDS did not yet have a name or was referred to as GRID – “Gay Related Immune Deficiency”. Of course, as was eventually realized, it attacks all human beings, not only gay men. In 1987 HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus was named.
By 1988, the U.S. Public Health Service added AIDS to its list of diseases for which people on public health grounds could be excluded from the USA. The book by Randy Shilts, “And the Band Played On,” had been published. AIDS, the first disease ever debated on the floor of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, had been identified in 91 countries with 47,022 reported cases in the United States by the end of 1988.
In Rochester, Martin Hiraga was a student at NTID (National Technical Institute for the Deaf) learning sign language interpretation/Spanish and English. Interpreting and training interpreters would be his primary work in the National Multicultural Interpreter Project from 1996 until his death in September, 2010. Locally, Martin was involved in the Deaf Pride Movement. He advocated for the deaf community, gays, lesbians and people of color. In 1988, an AIDS Hotline, and AIDS Rochester were up and running. It seemed that every day members of the gay community were being diagnosed with AIDS. As of July 20, 1988, there had been 18 cases of AIDS reported in Rochester, and 50 percent or nine of these men died. Members of the gay community were going to one funeral a week! This was Martin Hiraga’s world. A world he impacted greatly!
So it is not at all surprising that in April, 1988 at the Democratic presidential debate, held at the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, Martin and other members of ACT UP confronted the candidates individually and collectively demanding they address the issue of the unfolding AIDS Crisis. Across the country, including Rochester, AIDS activists demanded that the candidates integrate these issues into their campaigns making them a national priority. They called on candidates and already elected officials to increase funding for AIDS research, to propose and pass legislation to prevent discrimination against people with AIDS and those perceived to be at risk for AIDS, to organize a nationwide sex-positive educational campaign, and to present an accelerated plan for testing new drugs to cure, prevent and treat AIDS and related diseases.
“Our concern is that the candidates may choose platitudes instead of concrete plans to fight the epidemic” said member Martin Hiraga. Two days after the debate, five ACT UP members attended a Dukakis rally on April 18 at the University of Rochester. Dukakis spoke to a crowd of about 5,000 people on the need for a national health insurance system. Rochester ACT UP members shouted “What about AIDS?” Martin said Dukakis promised a cure for AIDS within his administration if elected. The Reagan administration budgeted 11.5 billion dollars in 1988 for AIDS education and research. Dukakis promised to spend $900 million. “What that says is Michael Dukakis is less willing to work on AIDS issues than Ronald Reagan, and Michael Dukakis is giving his constituents platitudes in order to not address the AIDS issue.”
These actions confronted the candidates on AIDS issues, and let local people know that they can have an impact on the political process and in building coalitions among gay men and lesbians and those from the medical community and the progressive community. Martin said the empowerment he feels each time he gets involved in lesbian and gay liberation actions and in AIDS actions keeps him going. Amy Bauer of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and Mark Fotopoulos, PWA (person with AIDS) activist were Martin’s role models. When Martin felt down about activism, he said, “I take out the scrapbook of pictures I have of Mark in demonstrations to remind myself that day by day the war is won.”
The following excerpts from articles in the 1988 issues of The Empty Closet illustrate the broad shoulders we stand on today because of Martin Hiraga’s legacy to not only the Rochester community, but to the world. These excerpts give us insight into the man who gave life, hope and love to all he encountered.
“The greatest joy I experience is seeing others become empowered. A friend was recently arrested and spent his first day in jail. I was gratified by his new-found understanding of prison issues and new willingness to confront the system on the problems of the incarcerated. Another friend, a PWA, felt able for the first time to publicly acknowledge his diagnosis after joining an action. Still another friend came out after participating in the March on Washington. Each time a he or she can confront the patriarchal, racist and heterosexist system by coming out, I feel inspired to work one more day.”
“My anger and rage about the government’s malicious denial of the AIDS crisis leads me to espouse radical actions to get our message across. Sometimes I find that others working with me don’t have the same level of rage and so aren’t willing to go as far out on a limb as I. When this happens, I take myself to New York City to get arrested with other radicals, and I feel better afterward.”
“It would be inappropriate to say that being gay by itself has influenced my work and stands. Being a dual minority has influenced them more than anything else. I cannot consider any part of liberation without involving all parts of me.
“No matter how hard I try I cannot separate my experiences as a Japanese-American from my experiences as a gay man, nor vice versa.”
“I experience the most tension when whites claim reverse discrimination. My perception is that white people I know have yet to experience real discrimination on the basis of race, and I find it hard to hear such claims as anything other than faux.”
With the many people in the Rochester community who knew and loved Martin, Shoulders To Stand On is grateful for his life and proud to stand on the shoulders of a man whose passionate, intense, selfless life continues to challenge and inspire us to fight for human rights for all.