Pedro Zamora

Pedro Pablo Zamora (born Pedro Pablo Zamora y Díaz, February 29, 1972 – November 11, 1994) was a Cuban-American AIDS educator and television personality.

As one of the first openly gay men with AIDS to be portrayed in popular media, Zamora brought international attention to HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ issues and prejudices through his appearance on MTV's reality television series, The Real World: San Francisco.

In 1980, when Zamora was eight, his family left Cuba for the United States during the Mariel boatlift.

After five days of processing in Cuba, the entire family was to board when, hours before boarding, Cuban officials ruled that his four older brothers were too close to draft age and had to remain.

His oldest sister, a communist official, chose to stay.

The older siblings insisted, over their parents' objections, to leave without them to give their younger siblings a better life.

Zamora and his parents, his sister Mily, and his brother Jesús left in a boat filled with 250 people that had been built for half that number.

The Zamoras settled in Hialeah, Florida, a suburb of Miami.

Zamora's mother died of skin cancer when he was 13.

His older sister Mily helped raise him.

Zamora focused on his schoolwork as a means of coping with his mother's death.

He was an honor student, president of the Science Club, and captain of the Cross-Country team.

He excelled socially as well; his Hialeah High School classmates elected him as Most Intellectual and Best All-Around.

He initially planned to become a doctor, as his mother's death had inspired him to study medicine.

At 14, Zamora's father discovered that he had a boyfriend.

His father was accepting of Zamora's homosexuality, but concerned about homophobia and its potential dangers.

Although AIDS awareness was rising in America, Zamora was not educated about safe sex and AIDS prevention, as such things were not mentioned in school, with the exception of one guest lecture by a doctor who visited Zamora's class when he was in the seventh grade.

According to Judd Winick's Pedro and Me, AIDS and its victims were characterized by the doctor as "deviants, drug addicts, prostitutes".

In late 1989, in his junior year of high school, 17-year-old Zamora donated blood during a Red Cross blood drive.

A month later, he received a letter from the Red Cross informing him that his blood tested "reactive", though it did not specify for what.

Zamora decided to be tested for HIV, and on November 9, 1989, the results confirmed he was HIV-positive.

His family was devastated but remained supportive.

Zamora's goal was to graduate from high school before he died, and he did so in 1990.

Five months later, he suffered a severe case of shingles.

Upon recovery, Zamora joined a Miami-based HIV/AIDS resource center called Body Positive.

There he met others with HIV and AIDS, learned more about the disease and how he could still have a fulfilling life.

Soon thereafter, he began to talk about his condition to others, wanting to raise awareness in his community.

Zamora soon became a full-time AIDS educator.

He lectured at schools for all ages, at PTA meetings, and in churches.

In five years, he spoke nationwide hundreds of times, attended an international AIDS conference, and even served on the board of a charitable trust endowed by insurance companies—despite being denied insurance for himself.

Zamora's romantic relationship with Sean Sasser was also documented on the show; their relationship was later nominated by MTV viewers for "Favorite Love Story" award, and the broadcast of their commitment ceremony in 1994, in which they exchanged vows, was the first such same-sex ceremony in television history, and is considered a landmark in the history of the medium.

U.S. President Bill Clinton credited Zamora with personalizing and humanizing those living with HIV—especially to Latino communities—with his activism, including his testimony before Congress.

Zamora's personal struggle with AIDS, and his conflict with housemate David "Puck" Rainey is credited with helping to make The Real World a hit show, for which Time ranked it #7 on its list of "32 Epic Moments in Reality-TV History".

Pedro Zamora was born in Diezmero, San Miguel del Padrón, on the outskirts of Havana, Cuba, to Héctor Zamora, a food-warehouse worker, and Zoraida Díaz, a housewife.

Zamora was their eighth and youngest child.

Díaz had been told she could not have any more children, thus Zamora's birth on a leap day was seen as charmed.

Héctor had fought in the Cuban Revolution for Fidel Castro, but became disillusioned with changes after Castro came to power.

This earned him an unfavorable reputation with local informants.

As a result, life became increasingly difficult for the Zamoras, who lived in a small house with a dirt floor.

Zoraida traded on the black market for food.