The Lincoln Park memorial in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles was the first publicly funded AIDS monument in the nation.
Richard Zaldivar championed the project over 30 years ago, which includes a community health and wellness organization dedicated to serving Latino, LGBTQ+ and other under-served populations.
"I really believe that we're born into this world for specific reasons," Zaldivar said. "Our life's journey is really to find out what those purposes are, and I think I have found my purpose."
He was born and raised in the northeast area of L.A. where he went to Catholic school, high school and college.
"I got involved in my community when I was 17 years old, bringing people together to talk about drug abuse. I worked for a city councilman for about 14 years."
But it wasn't until later on in life when he came out of the closet in his second year of sobriety.
"My best friend shared with me that he was HIV positive. It really impacted me to see his face of shame and fear and I decided to do something about it," continued Zaldivar.
"So I made a commitment to build an AIDS monument to people who died from AIDS as a way to address the stigma and the denial, my community."
They started on December 1, 1993, which is World AIDS Day.
"It was hard in the early days, raising dollars for an AIDS monument, and then things just started to happen."
"I dedicated the last 31 years of my life to addressing not only HIV/AIDS, but to substance use and mental health issues that really impact not only the LGBTQ community, but the Latino community and the community and in general and underserved populations. I want LGBTQ members to be healthy and happy just the way I was brought up in my life."
"When the agency started it was focused on monolingual English speaking Latinos, which is a group of men that had nowhere to go," stated Enrique Topete, Finance and Grants Director for The Wall Las Memorias.
"The agency served as that connection point. We don't only specialize in HIV care, we do a lot of substance abuse prevention and education with families and parents."
"We also do mental health prevention, which I think is something that not a lot of people were doing."
The Wall Las Memorias serves all of Los Angeles County and their services are open to everyone.
Topete added, "The agency is Richard's baby. The monument's his baby. If there's a social injustice out there, he will make sure that we call attention to that injustice."
Zaldivar continued, "There are other memorials and memorial parks, but this is the only place where you have a standing physical monument built using government funds."
"It's a solemn place to remember those who passed. Whatever we have to do to make our community welcomed, and part of that's our job. That's our task. That's our dream."
"And we must celebrate the living for who they are. Not what we want them to be. That's the ultimate goal of The Walls Las Memorias."
For more details, go to: thewalllasmemorias.org