| Within New York City's impoverished communities, all too often African-American and Latina women cope with separation and loss through violence, drug addiction, imprisonment, illness and death. This ethnographic study examines how some of these women sustain their determination to support their HIV/AIDS-infencted men's struggles to prolong their lives and avoid dying of AIDS in prison. Particular attention is given to how these women draw on culturally-spefic rationales to justify the kinds of support they provide their men and reassure themselves that their efforts are worthwhile. Preliminary findings reveal that two rationales emerge from the women's accounts. One rationale draws upon traditional family values that women, out of loyalty, duty and obligation, stand by their men. The other rationale emphasizes the importance of African American and Latina women resisting those societal forces which place their men at risk for extinction. The goal of resistance is (1) protection of their imprisoned HIV/AIDS-infected men and (2) to support their man's struggles to stay alive thereby underminding this genocidal plan. Finally, I conclude that these rationales allow women to resist dissolving relations with their men and ameliorate the pains of enforced separation from an imprisoned loved one facing a life threatening disease. |
Updated 05/20/2006