LATV Presents the Second Volume of HIV Docu-Series “Living y Ready”

The second volume of LATV’s docu-series, “Living y Ready,” not only re-frames the gay, Latino experience living with HIV today, but also explores the effects of familial machismo, the lack of sex education, varied expressions of queer identity, and resilience.

LATV’s docu-series, “Living y Ready,” is returning with a second volume of episodes in 2024. Created by the network’s CEO Andrés Palencia, the show presents diverse profiles of gay, Latino men living with HIV, and takes a magnifying glass to their united stories of resilience. Through up-close interviews captured in the homes of five men who happen to be HIV-positive, each episode re-frames the contemporary narrative around HIV and dismantles dated stigmas.

The series kicks off with Los Angeles native Ryan Wooten, who has used positivity to overcome obstacles that stood in his way of self-love. In his youth, he struggled to find his identity as a Black, Mexican gay man. As a young adult, when he was diagnosed HIV-positive, he struggled to find a viable path forward.

“I found myself feeling like a statistic: 18-23, gay man having sex with gay men, Latino, Black, lower-income [. . . ] There were times I didn’t want to be here,” Wooten says. “On [the worst] days, I would take two or three buses to go to the LGBT Center just to talk to someone.”

Now the co-president of Impulse Los Angeles and a district manager for a coffee shop, Wooten advocates for his community and helps others find joy while grappling with identity and place. 

The next episode chronicles the story of Jose Magaña, a U.S. military staff sergeant who was brought to California from Veracruz, México, when he was two-year-old. Growing up in East LA in a conservative household, he came into his pansexual identity in secret.

“I was one of those blank profiles you see on Grindr. I would download the app, hook-up, and delete it,” he says.

For Magaña, the hardest part about being diagnosed HIV-positive was the rejection he faced from lovers who were uncomfortable and uneducated about the disease. But this led him to therapy, where, for the first time, he discovered tools for embracing self-love.

The next 7-minute vignette belongs to hairdresser Fabian Quezada, who came out back in his hometown of Guadalajara, México. His mother, unwilling to accept her son’s gay identity, sent him to the seminary, where he was saturated in judgment and shame. So he ran away, at not even 17-years-old.

At a continuation high school in Long Beach, not long after crossing the United States border solo, Quezada received his diagnosis.

“[The healthcare workers] told me at 17-years-old that I was HIV-positive. It was a shock,” he says on the show. “I felt like I was going to die.”

After a period of homelessness, Quezada got on medication, got sober, found purpose, and even became an American citizen. Today, after living with HIV for 23 years, Quezada is a successful Los Angeles hairdresser whose picturesque apartment overlooks the Hollywood Hills. 

Next on the show is entertainer and activist Daniel G. Garza.

As early as eight-years-old, Garza showed signs of being different from other kids in his Dallas elementary school. He was multicultural, creative, and—eventually—openly gay. A divide went up between him and his father as a result, so he sought that paternal validation elsewhere: from teachers, coaches, and—later—lovers.

“What happened to me could have been avoided if my parents had broken down those barriers and talked to me about sex and sexuality,” Garza says on the show.

Months after being diagnosed, Garza made a career out of living with HIV. For the last two decades, he has traveled across the country educating, advocating, and running campaigns for the HIV community. Now 53-years-old, he lives in Laguna Beach, California, and has recently celebrated 12 years with his partner, Christian.

In the final episode, Felix Perez tells us that being diagnosed with HIV was one of the best things that ever happened to him.

The youngest of five siblings, Perez grew up in a relatively impoverished neighborhood in Houston where heteronormativity and Mexican machismo was expected. Fortunately for Perez, a sporty kid, traditional masculinity came naturally, even after being outed as gay his freshman year of high school.

Long before he was diagnosed, Perez was well-educated about HIV. In his youth, his uncle contracted AIDS and his mother went to care for him. Out of school, he spent eight years working in HIV healthcare. But after his own diagnosis in 2011, he discovered that living with HIV was incredibly personal, emotional, and psychologically-challenging.

“Living with HIV has made me healthier,” Perez says. “I am more conscious of what I eat, of drinking, of not doing drugs, of exercising, of trying to control my stress.”

From Downtown Los Angeles to Guadalajara, Monterrey to the Hollywood Hills, Living y Ready takes you on a thought-provoking journey of self-love, family shame, queer identity, and perseverance. Spearheaded by producers Natalia Trejos and Karla Solarte, with interviews conducted by writer Andrew Tamarkin, original illustrations by Tevy Khou, and captured on camera by filmmaker Pedro Kuhn González, this cinematic anthology of life stories sheds light on what it means to be living with HIV today.