Rosa Martínez and Eliana Martínez
Eliana Martínez (September 15, 1981 – November 27, 1989) was an American adoptee who contracted HIV from a blood transfusion as an infant. Her adoptive mother, Rosa Martínez (February 20, 1952 – August 18, 2022), fought for Eliana to be allowed to attend a public school without being isolated from other students by transparent partitions, referred to by Rosa Martínez as a "glass cage". Eliana died of complications from AIDS seven months after winning the right to attend a special education program without being physically isolated from other students. Biography Early life Eliana Martínez was born prematurely on September 15, 1981, in Puerto Rico. She received thirty-nine blood transfusions in the first four months of life, thereby receiving contaminated blood with HIV from one of them. Unable to care for Eliana nor her four older siblings, her biological parents were denied custody of her. The first eleven months of her life were spent in the hospital where she was born until she was adopted by Joe and Rosa Martínez. (The couple separated in 1986.) Eliana had multiple handicaps and was mistakenly diagnosed with cerebral palsy until the diagnosis of AIDS-related complex was confirmed; her handicaps were due to the effects