Pan‐latin Radical Hospitality: Faith‐based Hiv/Aids Education in the South Bronx

Abstract

The HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to have a devastating impact in the South Bronx, one of the most impoverished areas in the United States. Responding to this need is an Episcopalian HIV/AIDS social ministry operated by Misión San Juan Bautista. The ministry has grown from providing social support to infected and affected persons and increasing awareness of the disease, to designing and providing HIV, gender, and sexuality popular education programs for men and women. Misión San Juan Bautista's HIV/AIDS program makes an important contribution to the field of HIV/AIDS education through its development of a culturally and linguistically competent sexuality education program that fills a gap in the current approved list of HIV/AIDS education programs targeting Latino and Latina populations. Misión San Juan Bautista's HIV/AIDS initiatives utilize Freirean popular education methods. The programs take place among groups of community members, stimulating critical analyses of common cultural ideologies and practices around gender and sexuality and their effects on individuals, couples, families, and the community. This article examines how the small, Hispanic immigrant congregation and vestry collaborate with the vicar, volunteers, staff, consultants, and partners to serve clients from a range of Latin American countries with sexual health education. In so doing, we attempt to show how the congregation and vestry have internalized and put into practice concepts of liberation theology and radical hospitality.