Growing up hearing about the impact of AIDS, particularly how his dads met at the funeral of one of his father’s boyfriend’s funeral who sadly passed away from the disease, he understood the importance of the epidemic on the queer community. From a young age, he knew that seeing everyone, particularly those that society deemed ‘invisible’ was vital to how he needed to go about educating both himself and others. As he grew up, he sought out knowledge relating to the AIDS epidemic, trying to empathize with his dads; he wanted to understand the realities of the pain they endured. However, despite the impact AIDS had on his family, he came to realize in a high-school junior-year class that most students in his grade didn’t even know that the AIDS epidemic had occurred.

And thus, his research project was born. He realized that people were forgetting this life-altering, historic moment, and he knew he couldn’t sit idly by and watch that happen. He wanted to educate the community around him on AIDS, hoping that others would be able to better empathize with all the hardships the queer community faced and continues to face, and to enable his community to gain more critical thinking skills by having their preconceived notions challenged.

His research focused on how the phrase “Silence = Death,” a phrase used by the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), not only talked about the silence of the gay community and its allies to fight for change, but also included how the silence of the media, the government, and general society all lead to the vast amounts of unnecessary deaths by not taking action quickly.  

A key aspect of his research project was the component of oral histories, which you will find on this website. By interviewing a wide arrange of people above the age of forty, Kai was able to figure out emerging trends in his research, all while better empathizing with the hardships his interviewees faced during the AIDS epidemic. He inherently believes that, if able, hearing individuals’ stories are needed when researching history because it allows for the implementation of a subjective lens while the other aspect of his research tends to be objective. Interviews and oral histories allowed him to add a personal aspect to his research.

Enjoy browsing through the interviews.
Please be respectful and remember that these are personal experiences.

Thank you!