Modesto Tico Valle remembers the moment he first saw the AIDS Memorial Quilt in Washington D.C. It was 1988, and the quilt represented 1,200 people.
"I don't think I have ever cried so hard," he recalled. "The sadness I had, it was overwhelming."
Four years earlier, Valle had come out as gay. Rather than spending those college-age years partying with other gay men, he delivered meals, went to protests and cared for the sick. When the phone rang, he dreaded picking it up because he lived in fear of bad news.
"That was the way of life," he said. "That was the way of life for so many years. Sometimes you didn't even have time to grieve, so if you took that moment, you'd fall apart."
Valle recalls those days matter-of-factly. It's a story he's told many times to the press, especially since taking on the role of CEO at Center on Halsted more than four years ago. He knows the exact dates of important events. When he wants to illustrate how his mother became an LGBT ally, he has anecdotes on hand about how she went from a mother who disliked having a dress-wearing son to a caregiver for HIV-positive men. He also knows where he'd prefer to gloss over- personal details that distract from the message he wants his story to send.
For Valle, the AIDS Memorial Quilt speaks that message. It's a message he thinks young people still need to hear because, he says, the fight against AIDS is far from over. More than two decades after AIDS took his father, his partner of 10 years, and so many of his friends, he still fears another epidemic, despite medical advancements.
"I'm still fighting to give people a voice," he said. "And to give people hope."
From the CEO's chair at Center on Halsted, Valle has seen HIV-prevention funding dwindle. He knows that the poor economy has meant that more people struggle to buy HIV medication. He has watched infection rates grow among youth, especially at his own Center, which reported the highest youth infection rates of all state-funded HIV testing programs last year. And more than that, Valle, who was an activist long before he headed a major organization, remembers how quickly the AIDS pandemic changed the course of his own life irrevocably.
Valle was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in Old Town, the middle child of five. His parents, who did factory work for most of their lives, strived to raise open-minded kids. They had experienced the hardships of growing up poor and of living in the U.S. as people of color, Valle said. They wanted their own children to embrace different types of people because they understood what it meant to be marginalized.
"One of the things my family taught me was not to judge people but to accept them for who they are," he said. "They taught us to be loving human beings."
In 1984, on a visit home from the University of Notre Dame where Valle was a Sophomore in college, Valle's mother confronted him about her gay son. She wasn't talking about Valle, but his younger brother who had been sporting dresses while Valle was away at college.
It was Valle's job to "calm the waters," he said. His mother lamented that his younger brother was not more like him. But Valle told her that there was nothing wrong with his brother, and then he came out himself. She knew already. Valle never had girlfriends, and he took a neighbor girl who was his close friend to prom. Valle's mother had never talked about her suspicion until he came out. She wasn't just worried that her sons were gay, she told him. She was more worried that her sons would get AIDS.
The following year, Valle, who had missed Chicago while away, transferred to DePaul University to finish college. He became an activist upon returning home. AIDS was sweeping the city, and Valle was quickly recruited in the fight against it. He rallied alongside activists like Danny Sotomayor. He brought food to sick friends and walked their dogs.
In 1988, at the urging of NAMES Quilt founder Cleve Jones, Valle traveled to Washington, D.C. to see the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Jones had told him that he thought if politicians saw it, they would be moved to push for a cure.
The quilt stunned Valle and changed his life. He immediately set to work on bringing the project to Chicago. The following year, Valle founded the Chicago NAMES Project and brought the quilt for its first Midwest display to Navy Pier. When his father, who has been slow to accept that Valle was gay, saw the quilt, he turned to his son and said, "You need to take this into schools."
Valle agreed. He spent the following years dragging the quilt all over Chicago, packing it into his car and presenting it at lectures. He drafted a national curriculum around the Quilt to teach young people about AIDS.
It was the birth of a new kind of activism for Valle. The quilt was demonstrating that the disease did not discriminate, and the community response was a growing number of prevention and care services.
"The beauty of the quilt … is that from it, all these organizations were born," Valle said. Valle became involved with the NAMES Project nationally, showcasing the quilt in Chicago and D.C. repeatedly over the years and heading up education efforts around the quilt.
Shortly after Valle had showed his father the quilt, he learned that his father was HIV-positive. His family was shocked. Valle said he wonders if his father didn't struggle with being gay, but he said he didn't know or care how he contracted the virus.
"It doesn't matter how," he said. "It's how we take care of each other." While Valle's family reacted poorly to the news at first, he said, they came around in the end.
When all was said and done, Valle had not only watched his father die. He had lost his partner of 10 years. Both died in the early 1990s. These losses are the ones that Valle is more reluctant to talk about it, those that blur his role as an advocate for others into someone who has experienced loss personally. Here, his recollection of details and dates grows fuzzier. The facts come slower and grow more vague in nature.
In the years that followed the height of the pandemic, Valle watched his community recover. His advocacy work led him to Horizons and then finally to Center on Halsted's first CEO in 2007.
It's a role that has both brought him praise and admonishment, as the Center under his care has faced accusations that it's out of touch with the LGBT community's marginalized populationsyouth, the homeless, people of color, and transgender people. But Valle remains steadfast in his belief that "people vote with their feet," and that people from all walks rely on Center services.
Despite his title of CEO, Valle said he still identifies as an activist. "I'm still fighting to give people a voice," he said. "And to give people hope."
However, he isn't stopping there. Valle said he is considering a run for public office one day, perhaps as state representative or alderman. He thinks that a new wave of LGBT activism is sweeping the country, and he wants to be part of it. "That's what the AIDS epidemic taught me," he said, a tone of both celebration and sadness in his voice. "If you want equality, you can never sleep."