Liann Ainsworth

Liann Ainsworth reflects back on how witnessing the epidemic, through the passing of a close friend and through seeing how it impacted loved ones around her, highlighted to her how fear, ignorance, and inaction in the face of calamity bring out the worst in people. As a political activist, Ainsworth talks about how she tried to find information on AIDS from multiple perspectives, as to minimize her biases, and the strife the Reagan administration caused due to its inaction. Despite being somewhat removed from the AIDS epidemic due to living in Japan for 3 years, she notes the impact Ryan White’s story had on her when thinking about the disease.