POV

-Major funding for "POV" ha s been provided by the John D. and Catherine T. Ma cArthur Foundation, the Wyncote Foundation, the National Endowment fo r the Arts. Additional support provided by... ...and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you.

Woman speaking

-Miguel Dieppa. I come from San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. -Tell me what it's like. -Well, it's a tropical island. It's not very big. It's all very lush, and very lovely. Yes. My parents, of course. I have an older brother who's getting married now, and I have a sister who's 26, and I just found out yesterday she's gonna have a baby.

Laughs

-How exciting. -This is the third for her, which is really good. -I have only one memory of my Uncle Miguel. I was 6 years old. He came from New York for a surprise visit, and I don't remember how long he stayed. But it was long enough to get an impression of this fun, charming, seductive guy. And then that was it. Six months later, he was dead. After my uncle died in 1987, my grandmother Carmen made this scrapbook. This is how she remembered him -- the talented young actor headed for Broadway. The Miguel in this scrapbook seems like the son my grandmother wanted, not the one she had. If we only remember the good things about the people we love, what do we lose? -Hello. -Hola, Mama, como estas? Mama, there's something I've been thinking about, about Tio Mickey when he died. I wanted to just -- I wanted to know what you remember. -I remember being in touch with him the week before he died. And Miguel was very shaky, showed me some spots he had on his legs and told me it was cancer. I saw a ring that he was wearing, and I saw that my mother was very upset about him not giving up his relationship with Robert. And insisting that he repent. -So then, what do you know? -Her story was that Miguel went to confession before he died. He had repented and was received in heaven. -That -- doesn't it trouble you? -What -- what -- why should it trouble me? -Because if it's true, don't you want to know what happened?

Sighs

-I'm gonna backtrack all the way to the moment when someone called and told me -- I don't know who called me, who told me that Miguel had died. I met my parents in Puerto Rico for the funeral. It was sad to know that Robert was there. My mom wasn't too happy about it, but Papi insisted that it was the right thing for Robert to be there. And, uh... But he just kept off to one side, and he didn't -- I don't remember him being part of -- of our group for some reason. So that was it, and we said good-bye, and we went home, and we never saw or heard from Robert again. -What do you think has happened to Robert now? -I have no idea. I don't remember his last name. And everybody that I've asked, nobody remembers his last name. -Okay, Christmas Eve, I'm at my parents' house, and I look on Facebook, and I see a group of my friends, and they're discussing of, you know, this film about Miguel. I call Bob, right? I call him in California, and I say, "Bob, go to Facebook now." And he goes, "What do you mean, go to Facebook? I'm not on Facebook." And I go, "Go to the computer now and hit Cecilia Aldarondo. Hit Miguel Dieppa." So, you know, he Googles it, and he gets this, and he starts, "Oh, my God," you know, freaking out. And I said, "She's doing a film." And he goes, "Well, what is it about?" I said "You should call her. You should call her, she's looking for you. She's looking for you." And says, "Okay I'm gonna call her."

Telephone ringing

-Hello? -Hi, is this Robert? -How are you? -I'm good. I mean, I'm a little shocked. -I've often wondered how long it would take someone to reach me. I kept in the background purposely. -Really? -Yes, I did. -To get this message in this way is absolutely... -A dream come true. You know, I feel vindicated finally. I was always the outcast, you know? -Right. -I was the devil. I was the person who made him turn gay and all this kind of stuff, you know? Miguel was my best friend. The best friend I ever had in my life. And when he died, it punched a hole in my heart. Oh, my God, I can't believe this. This is too much. There's so much to talk about, what did you want to know?

Dialing

Telephone ringing

-Father Aquin. -Hi, it's Cecilia. I'm downstairs. -I'll be right down, sweetheart. -Okay. -This sofa, you sink into it. -Are you comfortable? -Yes, very. Mm-hmm. -So you have some things to show me. -Yes. -Where do you want to start? -I don't know, actually. Yeah, I think I'll start here. -First, before we start can you talk a little bit about what all this is? -These are all the things that -- These are very, very -- my memories of him. This is why I kept them, you know? These are very personal memories to me. -Well, let's sort of start at the beginning. I want to know... -How we met? -Yeah, how did you meet Miguel? -Well I was with four friends at a gay bar in Manhattan. And we were sitting at -- they had little tables. It was George and Harry and -- I can remember their names. They're all passed away from AIDS, all of them. And Michael came in, and he just came over to the table. He said, "What's so funny over here?" And I said "Oh, we're just having a good time, do you want to join us?" And he said "Sure." So he sat down with us. We just blossomed from there. Michael and I had a relationship from '75 till '87. That's a long time. Longer than people thought. This is Mike and I. There's my red glasses. I had every color of the rainbow. I had them before Sally Jessy Raphael. Michael hated those red glasses on me, he did. That was at his graduation. They didn't know I was there. I was in the back. What they don't know didn't hurt them. This is the last time he went to the island, right before he died. This -- he went at Christmas time. That was the only Christmas we did not spend together. -When I first met Aquin, he had a box of Miguel's things. The material remains of Miguel's other life. In that box, Miguel's wallet. It had all the standard things in it -- ID cards, credit cards. But in this wallet I found a troubling detail. No one in my family called him Michael. Who was this Michael? -He didn't want to be called Miguel. He wanted to be called Michael. I said okay. -Why do you think that was? -I have -- Because he didn't want to be associated with his parents. At that point, when I first met him, he was really angry at his parents. Really angry at his parents. -Did Miguel ever talk about leaving Puerto Rico? Like, what it felt like not to be there anymore? -Never spoke about it. -Island fever, I guess that's a diagnosis for my case. It's that feeling that creeps up on those who have known wider spaces, or long to do so. It is a fear that one's brain will be surrounded by water if one stays here too long. Those who are not natives and catch island fever either leave and return to the mainland, or they stay and become alcoholics. Those who are can expect a fate worse than death. They move to New York. -Small places like Puerto Rico have a special way of making you crazy. I've seen it all my life. Everyone wanting to leave. Everyone wishing they'd stayed. Miguel grew up in a schizophrenic place. But when he got to New York, I don't think he left it behind. A little while ago, I found a letter -- not in Aquin's box, but among my grandmother's things. Miguel wrote it years after he left home. Who did Miguel want to be? The straight guy? The Puerto Rican with no discernable accent? -Well, I've been in the mainland since around 1972, '73. So that's about six years now. -Well, besides theater -- I mean besides the obvious. I'm into theater. Okay.

Laughs

-My relation to Miguel, or I call him Michael. We were neighbors on 62nd Street in the 1980s. I really felt like Bob and Michael were, you know, my mother, my father, my brother, my cousins. They were all kinds of people in my life as family. It was a very artsy group once Michael came into the picture. There were dancers, there were artists. -He lived and breathed the theater. He wanted to share that. -Michael was just pure fun with me. We'd laugh until we couldn't laugh anymore. My sides used to hurt from laughing. We would smoke grass, and he -- we would laugh and laugh. We smoked before his father came one time. I'll never forget it. -And Michael was sort of the patriarch. He was -- he kind of held the group together and held Bob together. -Well, this is a gift that Michael gave me. This -- this was the fun -- this is cute. This is really cute. There was nothing I wouldn't do for him. Nothing. I told him a million times. You name it. I would jump off the bridge for you. I would jump with you, without you. This he gave to me, he wrote that in his hospital bed. Everything he had had hearts on it. "I love you to the moon and back." Michael always used to tell me that. He always told me that. -There was so much love and devotion. They had their arguments, but they had a good relationship, and they loved one another. Whether, you know, the intimacies of their relationship, I really don't know. In that, I don't. -It was a very short-lived sexual relationship. Trust me. I said "You have to be you, you are young. You have to let out your feelings, go out. Go have a good time. I'll be here. I'm not going anywhere. I don't care what you do, but don't ever bring a sexual partner back here." -He had a lot of freedom 'cause Bob worked nights to be whoever he wanted to be. You know, like, a lot of relationships are like that. You know, um... Especially, I think, in the male community. -He was a creature of the night, I called him. Because he went out at night to gay bars. Down to the Village, to the leather bars, and then he came home. He was into the dark side. He really was. -Michael would get dressed up and, you know, not leather like he was going to beat somebody up, but, you know, he was, like, going downtown. He was going where the real people were. So, you know, he'd wear his leather jacket, his boots. You know. But I wouldn't say that he was walking around, like, with chaps and all this other stuff. He may have, I don't know. -What would he wear? -Leather chaps and jacket, and a cap, and boots, and all that kind of stuff. -I guess I knew Michael by day. -I'm a bachelor, so it's completely different for me. -But you have close friends who are really -- -I have close friends and my family. -

Laughs

So Miguel. -Why do you say that? -Yes, that's the way he was. He was homophobic about himself. He was. And he played such a straight role during the day. Especially at Lebhar-Friedman. I would go meet him for lunch occasionally. He said, "Don't wait for me outside here." I said, "You crazy? Do I look gay to you?" -At the time that he and Miguel were together, Bob was a bartender, living the gay life. -I became a priest in 1967? And I left about 1974. I kept my faith. I never gave it up. I'd live my daily prayers. I did everything I normally did in the monastery. I found comfort in prayer, I did. -So did my grandmother. -I know. I know. But she took it to another level, is what she did. -I want to share something that I found with you, which is a letter from my grandmother. She wrote this letter, and this was actually -- It's dated July 28, 1987. So this is three months after he died. -"Dear brother in Christ, he had been living a life away from the Lord during the past seven years." She knew it. "But I always knew that Christ's love for him was even greater than mine. I was with him during the last months of his illness. He died from cancer." That's a lie. He died from AIDS. He did. I -- He had AIDS.

Sighs

"And I saw God's glory the day he repented and asked for a priest." She has such a twisted, contorted view of gay people, and what God is, and hatred. God doesn't hate. God is a god of love.

Sighs

Woman speaking Spanish

Woman speaking Spanish

-My grandmother was the spiritual center of my family. Everything I learned about how to be good, I learned from her. When I was 15, I helped her die. And when she died, everyone who knew her said, "There goes a saint." -My mother was brought up to be a good Catholic woman and to be a faithful servant, and she lived and died by that. -When she was a teenager, she had an ear infection, and she was very, very ill. The nuns were praying for her, and her mother promised that if she survived, that she would never walk again. So the next morning when the doctor came, he found that my mother was cured. That there was no remnants of the illness in her. And he proclaimed it a miracle. So my grandmother never walked again, and my mother lived to feel guilty for that. And to be the best daughter that she could be because her mother had given up something very important for her life. She owed her that much. And she owed God for saving her life.

Woman speaking Spanish

Miguel

-The universality of spiritual warfare; I am the resurrection and the life.

The enemy is active in

1. Growth of cults and the occult. 2. Pornography. 3. Sex crimes, perversion, and violence. 4. Abortion, pleasure... 5. Denial of God in human affairs. If you lay down your defenses, you are in the hands of the enemy. -For Mami, there was no -- she had no hate for Robert. She was frustrated. She was probably angry, but...but she didn't wish him, uh, bad things. She wanted his soul to be saved. She wanted all the souls to be saved for Jesus Christ. -Don't you think that's quite possibly a form of hate, though? -I -- I -- I can't go there. -They hated me. They really did. They hated me. When I tell you they hated me, I mean, they hated me. And this, your mother was in it, and he cut her off. He cut her out of it. See her leg there? -And who cut it? Did Robert cut it or did Miguel cut it? I think Robert cut it. Hmm? -He didn't say that. -He said Miguel cut it? I have this picture. I have a copy of this picture. That's my leg there. I wasn't there to back him up or to have his back or whatever. But that doesn't mean that I was condemning him. -Miguel thought you were. -He thought I was... But he didn't tell me that. He never said that to my face. Either in a private conversation or in a letter or anything. He never said that to me. -"Dear sister. Love is not spiteful, contemptuous, or defiant. The truth of the matter is that if you loved me wholeheartedly, you would be mocking everything you stand for. o if you say that you love me espite the fact that I'm gay, then you're saying your love in incomplete. And believe me, I don't love you despite anything. Though honestly, I still resent the fact that I was never asked to be a godparent to one of your children, and we both know why." -Because I never felt that clearly, the black and white thing that she did. I was never totally sure that... that homosexuality was a sin. But at the same time, I had to protect my child. You know, it was just in case. There's a lot of responsibility to lay around, a lot of blame to lay around. And the saddest thing is that my father couldn't stand up to my mother. And that's why he cried so much before he died, for not having the guts to defend his son. Because he knew things that I didn't know.

"Hot Shot" by Karen Young playing

The enemy is active in

Whoo-hoo, yeah When I'm sitting home And I'm all alone And I don't hear no phone I need a hot shot -I'm trying to remember where -- how I heard this. -I think it was Miguel or someone close to him. But I think it was Miguel. -I don't know if I heard it from Bob, or I actually heard it from Michael. -I remember him telling me a story about... -What I heard was that Michael walked into a bar in Puerto Rico and saw his father. -I heard that there was a bar that he would frequent that was called Bachelors. -He said that he walked into that gay bar, and he saw his dad. -And saw your grandfather kissing another man. -I don't remember whether Michael got up and walked out or Jorge got up and walked out. -And it kind of blew his world apart. -Okay. I... I met Jorge when I moved to Winter Park. Your grandfather was a nice man. He was a companion, so we did things together. We would go out to eat. We liked to go to the Macaroni Grill. Sometimes we'd go out to the bars. -To which bars? -To the gay bars. After your grandfather passed away, your mom told me that, um, your grandfather kept watching "Brokeback Mountain." They had it on the video, and he kept watching it. Every time he watched it, then he would cry. And so they were talking about that to me, and I think it was your father who said, "Was there any -- was there something there?" Wondering why he was crying, and I'm not sure if he was outright asking me if Jorge was gay or not, but I confirmed it. I know that he could never share who he was totally with the family, but I used to tell him "I think that, your family is really your treasure. You know, if you had it the other life, what was going to come of your other life?" The sad thing is that your grandfather never shared with Miguel that he was gay also, and I think he felt really badly really badly about that. But I don't think he knew how to deal with it. -I think that he must have felt really bad afterwards when he saw that movie, that "Brokeback Mountain." And he saw, you know, what a loving relationship could be between two men. He must have wondered. He must have wondered so many things. You could say that he was a hypocrite, but then again, look where he's coming from. In his culture, he would have never had the success he did in life if he had come out. He would have never become the director of College Board. He would have never been received as well as he did throughout Latin America and United States and wherever he went. -At the time that Miguel came under my care was really the dawn of the AIDS epidemic, both in the country, but certainly here in New York City. And of course, nobody knew what it was. One of the names of this new disease was "Wrath of God syndrome." -It was interpreted by the church that this was, you know, this was God's punishment. I think there was a big period of time that that was what we deserved. -Homosexuals say AIDS victims are being discriminated against, evicted by landlords, and feared by health workers. -More controversial are proposals to find and segregate those exposed to AIDS. -Ambulance drivers have refused to take AIDS patients. -Hospital workers have refused to take care of AIDS patients. -Every year for 15 years, the New York City Council has considered a homosexual rights bill and then rejected it. Catholic leaders have gotten involved. -We strongly believe that such a result would seriously undermine the moral education and values of our youth and the stability of family in our society.

Woman speaking Spanish

The enemy is active in

-Was it AIDS? Was it cancer? Was it...what it was? It was always top secret. You know, we saw the marks on his legs. We saw him suffering. We saw, but nobody would say it was AIDS, and nobody really admitted for a long time, and I don't know if ever they admitted that it was AIDS. -He had it. I know he had it. I saw all my friends dying of AIDS all around me, and I knew what those marks looked like. -I heard stories in my family that Miguel never wanted to be tested. -No, he didn't. -January 16, 1986.

At approximately 9

30 a.m. Dr. Donald R. Drusin came into my room and asked to speak with me privately in a room next door. He explained that it was the consensus of the team that there was too much AIDS risk in my care due to the fact that I was gay to perform the intervention. He said that if I had taken the AIDS test and proved negative, they would feel better. I told him that he knew my standing on the test. That I felt it was a blacklist and didn't prove a thing. -Miguel had fever. He had skin changes. He was constantly having blood draws and transfusions and medication that was making him sick. -Michael's right leg blew up so big with Kaposi's, it was like he didn't have -- It was a monstrous leg. It was all purple. They started out small, purple, purple-brown, and they got to big round, ugly, ugly, ugly marks. It was like scales. I would... Phew... I shuddered when I saw them. -It was this big alien presence. -His liver gave out. His kidneys gave out. -There were so many elements attacking this man's system. -It was so painful to look at. It really was. It was just so ugly. He was petrified. He probably knew, thought that he had AIDS. -He knew he was gonna die. -I was so sorry he got this. -A lot of it came to the surface after Michael got sick because his parents were around more. And he wanted them in his life, and he wanted to please them. He wanted their love and the support and help, and Bob wanted to be everything because he was his lover. -Your grandparents tried to stop me from seeing Miguel several times, actually. They talked to the doctors, but they did not know that the doctors came back to me and told me. And that's when Dr. Drusin got that letter for me. That letter of permission to go see Miguel at any time I want. Any time, 24 hours a day, I was allowed to be in the hospital. And I carried it in my back pocket. -It was a family war. Who was controlling what, when, who? Who loved Michael more? Who did Michael love more? It was very competitive. -She wanted him dead. She was happier that he was dead than he was alive. -My mom didn't want Miguel dead, no way. No way. If she could have given her arm, two arms, if she could have never walked again so that my brother could live, she would have never walked again. But she would rather see him safe in heaven rather than here in this Earth being tempted. -How does it feel to die? How does it feel to have your life slipped away from you and your mother telling you one thing, one thing, one thing, and your lover being there on the other side? -She made him give me back the friendship ring I gave him. She told him he could not get into heaven if he had that ring on his finger and to give it back to me. So when I went in, when she wasn't there one day, he put it in my hand, and he closed my hand and he said, "God will not let me in Heaven with this ring on." I said, "Who told you that?" He said, "My mother." I said, "Well, don't you know how much of a fool she is by now?" He said, "But she told me." I said, "Michael." I said, "How can you believe that? How could you possibly believe that? That's so hypocritical. God -- you even wrote that letter to your mother saying God does not discriminate. You know?"

Sighs

At approximately 9

-I went into the, uh... I went into the -- I went into the -- intensive care unit, and she had a crucifix as big as, this big laying on his body. I went into the nurse, and I said, "Get her out of there right now and get that crucifix off of him, it's killing him." -When he was dying, he was tied to his bed, and he had all these tubes all over. He had his arms spread out like he was crucified. And she was at the foot of the bed, and she felt like Mary at the foot of the cross. He did whatever he needed to do to die in peace. So that he could accept death. How do you prepare yourself for death unless you give yourself up? -There's this space in my imaginary. This space of stained glass and music and ritual, Easter, and resurrection, and Christ, and Miguel. And I don't remember traveling to Puerto Rico.

Song playing in background

At approximately 9

I don't remember what time the funeral was held. I just remember. I remember being in the church, and I remember the music. And it scared me, that song. It was so -- the melody was so dark and dour, and I was 6 years old. I was sitting -- standing there next to my grandfather. I'm looking up at him, and the tears are just streaming down his cheeks. That's all I remember. -I was at the funeral parlor, I was just sitting there. They never said hello to me, nothing. I was in the last pew. The bells started ringing at the church, and they brought the casket in. I saw the beginning of the casket, and I just collapsed right on the floor.

Sighs

At approximately 9

All my dreams had gone. Michael was gone. My -- I wanted to get over just to touch the coffin, to say goodbye, put my hand on it and say, "Goodbye pal." So I just put -- I went, "Good-bye, pal, I'll see you. I'll see you in the next life."

Sniffles

At approximately 9

-So one of the things I'm reading here. "Other survivors include his mother, Carmen, a brother Jorge, 33, and a sister Nylda, 35." How do you feel when you hear that? -Horrible. There's not a mention of me at all. They never mentioned -- It was like I'd never existed. -So who are you most angry at? -I don't know at times. I get so confused, you know? I really do. Michael at times. I see that face, and I get angry sometimes, really angry at him. -I think that with all I know now, I would have done something very different. I don't know if I would say I would feel guilty, but I know I was wrong. I have forgiven myself. I hope Miguel has forgiven me. And I, you know, I don't lose any sleep over it anymore. -Are you angry at your mother? -I'm sad. I'm sad that she suffered so much, and she made so many people suffer. I would like to think that her thinking would have evolved, but I don't know if it would have ever. -So what do you hope would happen now? -I have no idea what's going to happen. I would like to... to have an opportunity for reconciliation. An opportunity for me to say how sorry I am for the pain that he went through. And ask him for forgiveness. He can choose not to take the opportunity, and he can choose to remain bitter and angry and hurt. But what if he chooses to heal?

Bang

At approximately 9

-I'm freezing.

Laughs

At approximately 9

Oh, my God, it's like seeing Carmen.

Laughter

At approximately 9

-How are you? -Good to see you. -Nice to see you, good. -Oh, my goodness. God, you look just like your mother, you really do. My goodness. -But I've been thinking about you a long time. -Well... -Yeah... -I often wondered, I've thought, "Well, when are they going to call me or something? Somebody's got to get --" -I didn't have your information. I didn't know. -Google. You Google my name. -I didn't even remember your name. -Didn't sound right? -I didn't know the last name. -Ah, okay. -It was like Robert, Robert. -So what are you taking in your heart with you when you leave tomorrow? -Lots of happiness. -Good. -And I'm wondering when I can come back.

Laughs

At approximately 9

-The door is always open. -I've had a lot of time to think about things. And I never really forgave Michael. And I had something -- I was looking at something. Oh that little round oval photo, right there. And I looked at him, and I said, "Michael forgive me. I'm so sorry for being so thoughtless." -So what did that open up for you, that moment? -Well, it made me realize I was stupid for feeling -- being that way. But see, life is for the living, you know? And we are the people who suffer. Not Michael.

Telephone ringing

At approximately 9

-Hello? Are you busy right now? Okay. Uh, so you know basically, I've been feeling all along like you were a bystander to this conflict. And that you didn't do enough for your brother, and I'm realizing that I'm here telling the story about all these people, and I've been struggling all along to figure out, how do I forgive everyone? How do I forgive my grandmother for the choices she made? How do I forgive Aquin for the horrible things he said about her? And I never -- and I've never forgiven you. Yeah, it always is. You know, I filmed that reunion with you and Aquin. And it's so staged. You remember how ridiculous that was! It looks like a perfect reunion. Right...

Chuckles

At approximately 9

Do you feel that way? Do you ever want to call Aquin? But isn't he your family? You know sometimes I feel like I'm on a quest for justice on behalf of your little brother. I'm sorry, mama. Yeah, but what I'm saying is can't we survive and look out for others as well? -I guess I'll never really know how things would have turned out for me. That's the road never taken. I only wish I could share in this with others. Although I know it is impossible to transfer the whole of my experience, I feel that I have somehow seen the face of God. And having stared at Death, I must admit, I much prefer his to Death's, whatever and whomever God turns out to be. Sincerely, Miguel.