The borderland between China and Myanmar is a region marked by transnational aspirations and significant anxieties, including a heightened risk of contagious diseases. Notably, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic has been intensifying, especially among linguistic minorities in this area. To ensure that public healthcare provisions are accessible for linguistic minorities living with HIV, we examine the communication experiences of HIV-infected Burmese wives in a Chinese border town. Drawing on a critical sociolinguistic ethnography conducted between May 2022 and December 2023, this study collected multiple types of data including: semi-structured interviews with two Burmese wives and four stakeholders including two Chinese healthcare providers and two Chinese husbands; participant observation; field notes; and China’s HIV healthcare policies and other relevant written documents. The findings reveal that HIV-infected Burmese wives are confronted with multiple linguistic and social vulnerabilities in their access to HIV healthcare services. Despite that, their Chinese husbands and healthcare providers developed a collective resilience to enhance the quality of HIV healthcare services. Our study demonstrates that language, intersected with other social factors, complicates the HIV communication disparity. Our study contributes to multilingual crisis communication by addressing the lived communication experiences of linguistic minorities at the intersections of language, gender, class and migration status.