Abstract
The AIDS pandemic landed a devastating blow to the LGBTQ community during the 80s and early 90s. Organizations like ACT-UP, created to combat the disease, focused on helping their white membership, leaving minorities like Asians and Pacific Islanders (API) to fend for themselves. As a direct effect of a lack of visibility and representation, the API community rallied together to define what community meant to them. This thesis explores multiple organizations, created by and for APIs, to build social, medical, and artistic visibility for a group that felt invisible. While looking at the lasting scars of AIDS alongside the pillars of activism, this area of scholarship has long since been dominated by ACT-UP and other white-centric histories. Stories of protest and social gatherings shine brightly through GAPIMNY. Artists boldly take a stand for their visibility in Godzilla. Members of APICHA work to keep their community alive as the government deems them ‘other’. These stories and their visibility remain at the forefront of this thesis as we explore self-made community activism.
How to Cite
Willis, A., (2025) “Dismantling Invisibility: The Making of Asian and Pacific Islander Community During the AIDS Pandemic”, Capstone, The UNC Asheville Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship 38(1).
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