RIP Pedro. - MTV's "A Tribute to 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. Zamora, who was openly gay and publicly discussed being HIV-positive, brought international attention to HIV/AIDS and LGBT issues and prejudices through his appearance on MTV's reality television series, The Real World: San Francisco.

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. His romantic relationship with Sean Sasser was also documented on the show with the two getting married on air; their relationship was later nominated by MTV viewers for "Favorite Love Story" award.

Early Life

Zamora was born in Diezmero, San Miguel del Padrón on the outskirts of Havana, Cuba, the eighth and youngest child of his family. His father, Hector, had fought in the Cuban Revolution for Fidel Castro, but became disillusioned with the changes after Castro came to power and revealed himself as a communist. According to Pedro, any mention of Castro in their home would result in a tirade from Hector, for which he earned a reputation with local informants, who as a result, made life difficult for the family. The Zamoras lived in a small house with a dirt floor. Food was scarce, and Zamora's mother, Zoraida Diaz, would trade on the black market for food.
After the birth of their seventh child, Zoraida had been told that she would not be able to have another, so when Zamora was born feet first on February 29, 1972, the leap day of a leap year, he was regarded as charmed, and treated specially by those in his community.
The Zamoras left Cuba for the United States during the Mariel Boat Lift, when Pedro was eight. After five days of processing, the entire family was set to board for the U.S. on May 30, 1980, when, mere hours before they did so, government officials ruled that his four older brothers and older sister were too close to the draft age, and had to remain. The elder siblings insisted, over their parents’ wishes, that they go without them so that the younger ones would have a better life. Pedro's parents took him, his sister Mily, and his brother Jesus onto a boat filled with 250 people that had been built for half that number. The Zamoras resided for most of his life in Hialeah, Florida, a suburb of Miami. As a result of the difficulty of the family’s continued separation, Pedro became very close to his mother.
Zoraida died of skin cancer when Pedro was thirteen. Suppressing his grief, he went into denial by throwing himself into his schoolwork, and by having promiscuous sex. He was an honors student, president of the Science Club, captain of the Cross-Country team, and as one of the most popular students in Hialeah High School, was voted Most Intellectual and Most All-Around. His mother's passing inspired him to become a doctor, but he replaced her presence in his life by becoming sexually active with many sexual partners. He was ignorant of safe sex, as the only AIDS education he received was in the seventh grade from a man who did not present the disease as a legitimate threat to him, but as something distant that only afflicted societal undesirables like prostitutes, drug addicts and homosexuals. Things such as sex and condoms were never mentioned, and thus Zamora never identified himself as someone at risk. When he was fourteen, his father, suspecting his son was gay, had his brother follow him when he was supposed to be going out with a group of friends, only to find Zamora with his boyfriend. Zamora admitted his sexual orientation when his father confronted him. Hector, rather than being upset, was concerned over the homophobia to which his son might be subjected, but affirmed that he would be supportive of his son.

Living with AIDS

Pedro Zamora (left) with Alonso R. del Portillo in 1993.

In his junior year of high school, Zamora donated blood during a Red Cross blood drive, and received a letter a month and a half later saying that his blood tested "reactive", though it did not specify for what, as the general screening was for a variety of viruses and infections. Zamora initially denied his suspicions, but weeks later, he decided to be tested, and on November 9, 1989, the results confirmed that he had HIV.
Despite the devastation of his family at the news, he decided to redouble his efforts to graduate from high school before he died, though he did not give much thought to his health, as he was still in denial. He graduated high school in 1990, a year early, but five months later, he suffered a severe case of shingles that covered the entire right side of his body and face. With medication, the condition subsided after two months, but it inspired Zamora to join a Miami-based HIV/AIDS resource center called Body Positive, where he met others with HIV and AIDS, and educated himself about the disease, learning how to lead a positive life with it. Soon thereafter, he came to talk about his condition to others to attempt to raise awareness about the disease in his community.
Although his academic accomplishments could have gained him admission to very good colleges, Zamora decided to make a career as an AIDS educator. He began to lecture at schools of all levels, PTA meetings, churches, and anyone else who would listen, traveling the country, sitting on the boards of various AIDS organizations, and hoping to use what time he had left to prevent others from sharing his fate. At the age of 19, his work came into national focus when Eric Morganthaler wrote a front page article about him for the Wall Street Journal, resulting in talk show interviews by Geraldo Rivera, Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey. Though Zamora was gay, he chose to not make that explicit point to school children, preferring to emphasize to them that he got the disease through unprotected sex, so as to underscore the fact that both homosexuals and heterosexuals could contract HIV. On July 12, 1993, he testified before the United States Congress, arguing for more explicit HIV/AIDS educational programs, saying, “If you want to reach me as a young man – especially a young gay man of color – then you need to give me information in a language and vocabulary I can understand and relate to."
In 1993, Zamora met a fellow AIDS educator named Sean Sasser during a gay/lesbian march in Washington D.C., when both were involved with other people, and they became friends. The constant travel took its toll on Zamora, who at times was so tired that he was forced to cancel speaking engagements.

The Real World

In mid-1993, Zamora became aware that MTV was casting for the next season of their reality TV show, The Real World, which would take place in San Francisco. His best friend and roommate, Alex Escarno, convinced him to put together an audition tape, arguing that he could reach more people simply by living in The Real World house than through the cross-country travel that exhausted him. Six months later, Zamora was informed that he had been chosen to be a castmate on the show, beating out 25,000 applicants.
Zamora and his six castmates (Mohammed Bilal, Rachel Campos, Pam Ling, Cory Murphy, David "Puck" Rainey, and Judd Winick) moved into the house at 953 Lombard Street on Russian Hill on February 12, 1994. While the producers informed the other six housemates that they would be living with someone HIV-positive, they did not tell them who it was. The first to meet Zamora was Cory Murphy, who traveled to the house with Zamora. During their trip, he told her he had AIDS. Zamora quickly bonded with his housemates. Zamora informed his roommate, Judd Winick, that he was the one with AIDS by telling him he was an AIDS educator, and the rest of the cast by showing them a scrapbook of his career as an AIDS educator. Another castmate, Rachel Campos, became uncomfortable with this, and initially distanced herself from Zamora, stating that she wanted to know how this would affect her, but said nothing for fear of seeming intolerant. Zamora took this as an act of rejection on her part, though the two later formed a rapport in the second episode, in which Zamora addressed her concerns about his condition by educating her about HIV and AIDS. Nonetheless, Zamora later took offense at jokes about homosexuals that Rachel engaged in with David "Puck" Rainey.
Winick, who became best friends with Zamora, stated that Zamora had an almost "clairvoyant" ability to broach sensitive subjects, and still sensing that Winick had lingering doubts about sharing a room with him, Zamora educated Winick on ways in which the virus could and could not be transmitted, and did so subtly, through casual conversation, so that Winick did not even realize it.
As the weeks went on, Winick and castmate Pam Ling often attended Zamora's lectures at schools in the Bay Area, which allowed them to learn more about HIV and AIDS. Castmate Cory Murphy joined the trio about halfway through their stay in the loft, often joining them on outings.
Sean Sasser had been living in San Francisco for a couple of years, so when Zamora moved into the loft, he and Sean began dating. Zamora asked the show's producers for permission to go out without cameras, so that he and Sasser could get to know one another in a more natural setting. The producers allowed this, and the two young men fell in love. Sasser proposed to Zamora, and the two exchanged vows in a commitment ceremony in the loftt. Their relationship was nominated for "Favorite Love Story" at the 2008 Real Worlds Awards Bash.
Zamora came into personal conflict with housemate Rainey from the beginning of their stay in the house. In addition to Rainey's poor hygiene, his perceived narcissism, and his refusal to compromise on household issues, he mocked Zamora's Cuban accent, and denigrated his career as an educator, and made aforementioned gay-related jokes that offended Zamora. Winick described Rainey as "obnoxious" and "homophobic", and Zamora, feeling that the stress of his confrontations with Rainey was contributing to his deteriorating health, announced he would move out. The entire cast voted instead to evict Rainey from the house. Zamora’s health continued to deteriorate, however, and he suffered night sweats, Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia, and weight loss, and slept more frequently. Although he was able to participate in activities like parasailing during the group’s trip to Hawaii, the cast grew more worried about him nonetheless, often covering up for him during their weekly "confessional" interviews with the producers by telling them that Zamora was doing fine when they knew otherwise.

After The Real World

Pedro Zamora a few days before his death with his father and all his siblings.

The cast moved out of the loft on June 19, 1994, and the first episodes of The Real World: San Francisco began airing a week later. Zamora visited his family in Miami before returning to San Francisco to live with Sasser. When Winick, Zamora, Murphy, and Ling met again that August for a reunion party, Zamora's health and appearance had worsened, and having previously been talkative, he was often silent for long periods, finding it difficult to follow conversations or remember locations of places he had known for years. Zamora went to New York City for a scheduled interview on CBS This Morning but canceled. His contacts at MTV convinced him to see a doctor, but when he arrived at the MTV offices, he did not know where he was. On August 17, Zamora checked into St. Vincent’s Hospital, and was diagnosed with toxoplasmosis, a condition which causes brain lesions, fatigue, headaches and confusion. While medication alleviated the toxoplasmosis, further tests, including a biopsy, revealed he had Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a rare and usually fatal viral inflammation of the brain that breaks down the electrical impulses of the nervous system. Although only 1% of AIDS patients contracted PML, it usually dissipates on its own in patients with higher T-cell counts of 300-400. More serious symptoms of the illness can include paralysis or aphasia. At the time, Zamora’s T-cell count was 32, and the inflammation was attacking the frontal lobes of his brain, causing him short-term memory loss. Zamora was given three to four months to live.
On September 3, about three weeks after checking into St. Vincent’s, Zamora was flown to Miami to be with his family. The PML slowly took away Zamora’s ability to speak, though when then-President Bill Clinton called Zamora to thank him for his work, Zamora expressed elation at the call, and was able to respond. Clinton, along with a Zamora family friend named Alonso R. del Portillo, Attorney General Janet Reno, Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, and Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, reached an agreement with Cuba that would admit 20,000 Cubans per year. The Zamoras would be among the first, and would arrive in the next couple of weeks, reuniting the family for the first time in 15 years.
On October 21, Winick announced to the press that MTV had begun a trust in order to pay for Zamora's medical costs, as Zamora had no medical insurance.
During the wait for the family members from Cuba, Zamora developed a high fever and was admitted to Mercy Hospital. Wishing not to subject his family to a slow and prolonged death as had occurred with his mother, Zamora stated his wish not to be kept alive by artificial means. Hospitalized and unable to speak for almost a month, being fed intravenously, and becoming unresponsive, his family honored his wishes, and withdrew life support, including medication, food and water. Surrounded by his family, Escarno, Winick, and Ling, Zamora died at 4:40 a.m. EST on November 11, 1994, the day after the final episode of The Real World: San Francisco aired. He was buried on November 13 at Vista Memorial Gardens in Miami Lakes, Florida.

Legacy and tribute

After his death, Zamora was publicly praised by President Bill Clinton and Donna Shalala for his leadership and work in educating high school students, saying that through his appearances on The Real World, Pedro had become a part of viewers’ families, and that all people who watched the show could now say that they “knew” someone who had lived with AIDS.
MTV broadcast A Tribute to Pedro Zamora, a special memorial program, in his honor.

Zamora's family at the dedication of "Pedro Zamora Way" and the "Pedro Zamora Garden" on March 1, 1995.

A street in Miami (SW 59th Street) was given the name "Pedro Zamora Way", although it is not in Hialeah, where he lived.
A number of organizations were created in Pedro's name, including National Pedro Zamora Foundation, which was founded by Winick, Ling, Mily Zamora, and Sasser, The Pedro Zamora Memorial Fund, which was created by the AIDS Action Foundation, the Pedro Zamora Youth Clinic, The Pedro Zamora Public Policy Fellowship and the Pedro Zamora Youth HIV Clinic. Winick, Ling, Mily Zamora and Sasser eventually distanced themselves from the Foundation due to conflicts with its president, Brian Quintana.
Winick continued lecturing on behalf of Pedro for three years, and his friendship with Zamora helped shape his subsequent work as a comic book writer and artist. His autobiographical graphic novel, Pedro and Me: Friendship, Loss, and What I Learned, was published in September 2000. It was awarded and nominated for numerous awards, including six American Library Association awards, a nomination for an Eisner Award, won Winick his first GLAAD award, has been praised by creators such as Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman, and Armistead Maupin, and has been incorporated into school curricula across the country. Winick's experiences with Pedro would also help shape his work in mainstream superhero comics, which would receive considerable media attention for storylines in Green Lantern and Green Arrow which explored gay or AIDS-related themes.
Bunim-Murray Productions produced a film, Pedro, directed by Nick Oceano, dramatizing Zamora's life. The film was an Official Selection at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival. In the film, which is Bunim-Murray's first scripted project, Zamora is portrayed by Alex Loynaz.










-end-