Researcher ORCID Identifier
0000-0002-4961-675X
Graduation Year
2021
Date of Submission
3-2021
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Award
Best Senior Thesis in Gender Studies
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
History
Reader 1
Tamara Venit-Shelton
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2021 Angel Ornelas
Abstract
Since the early 1990s, antiretroviral medications have made it possible to reduce viral loads of HIV/AIDS to the point of undetectability to standard blood tests. Individuals living with such low quantities of the virus have reframed our social understanding of the HIV-AIDS epidemic by redefining HIV infection as a chronic, manageable disease and challenging current public health definitions of safe-sex activity for homosexual men. HIV infection is no longer a death sentence, but it remains a life sentence requiring constant medication adherence and treatment, major changes to lifestyle habits, and a modification in sexual performances. This thesis sheds new light on the understudied experiences of los indetectables, HIV-positive Latinos with an undetectable viral load. In what ways has the possibility of undetectability transformed the lives and intersecting identities of los indetectables? Through archival research and oral history and ethnographic research with HIV-positive Latinos affiliated with BienEstar, an L.A-based organization, this thesis argues that HIV-AIDS treatment options continue to implement homophobic approaches to care.
Recommended Citation
Ornelas, Angel, "Los indetectables: An Examination of Oral Histories of HIV+, Undetectable Gay Latino Men During COVID-19 and U=U (Undetectable = Untransmittable) Era" (2021). CMC Senior Theses. 2665.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2665
