Seems money and K-Mart clothing aren’t the only thing migrant workers return to Mexico with these days. Research shows that they’re singlehandedly responsible for an alarming increase in HIV/AIDS rates among rural Mexicans, contracting the disease during their loneliest moments in the United States. (You try being away from your wife / girlfriend / mistress for months at a time, and not think twice about that local tramp your co-workers recommend. Oh, you have? Never mind, then.) Surprise, surprise! Attitudes about the problem differ on either side of the border:

Particularly in Mexico, AIDS is still shrouded by stigma and denial. In the United States, it is often assumed that immigrants bring diseases into the country, not take them away.

And we all know what happens when people ‘assume’ things. Speaking of ass, some Johns in L.A. desperate for a piece are at least partly to blame for the semi-epidemic:

A study financed by the California-Mexico AIDS Initiative found that more than a third of the migrants at job-pickup sites in Los Angeles had been offered money by men for sex. About a tenth of the migrants, desperate to earn a living, have agreed, the study found.

We wonder if turning tricks is an option in that video game where you make day-to-day decisions as an illegal immigrant. Nothing takes the edge off prostitution like a dose of virtual reality!

Mexican Migrants Carry H.I.V. Home [NY Times]
Image [University of Kentucky]