| Subject: Fashion vs. passion |
Author:
Miriam Mata
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Date Posted: 08:25:25 03/24/05 Thu
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkyJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2NjY4NzAz
Fashion vs. passion
Monday, March 21, 2005
By MIGUEL PEREZ
STAFF WRITER
TARIQ ZEHAWI / THE RECORD
Ernesto "Che" Guevara's image welcoming shoppers to Flamingo's Boutique in Union City. One Cuban-American bought a shirt there, then burned it.
Some people consider Ernesto "Che" Guevara the ultimate Latin American revolutionary leader, a man who gave his life to free the people of the Americas from U.S. imperialism.
Others see him as a coldblooded killer, the man who ran Fidel Castro's firing squads after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.
Thirty-eight years after his death, new generations regard Guevara and his familiar beard and beret as mostly a fashion statement.
Guevara's image has appeared on T-shirts and other garments for years, but his status as a cultural icon has taken on new significance since the 2004 film "The Motorcycle Diaries," which followed the Argentinian's journey around South America before the revolution.
Increasingly, when young Latinos wear his image, older Cuban-Americans are offended - to the point of shouting matches that threaten to erupt into fistfights.
One recent afternoon, 73-year-old Carlos Barberia was waiting for a bus on Bergenline Avenue in Union City when he spotted a Guevara T-shirt on a sidewalk rack. He bought the shirt - and promptly set it on fire with a burning newspaper.
"Che Guevara killed my father," he told a police officer, explaining his outburst. "He had my father shot by a firing squad in Cuba."
The officer turned out to be Cuban, too. "He told me, 'I have not seen anything' and he walked away," Barberia says.
But the shopkeeper who sold the T-shirt says he thinks Cubans like Barberia are "crazy." Jorge Posadas, who is Mexican, says he's had many confrontations with Cubans who ask him to stop selling Guevara merchandise at his Flamingo's Boutique.
"They tell me he was an assassin and I tell them that was his problem and I don't care," he says. "I tell them this is a store, not a political party or a government, and that I sell whatever people want to buy."
For emphasis, he adds that if his clients were interested in Osama bin Laden shirts, he would sell them, too.
Another Union City merchant was more sensitive. Sang Lee, manager of the Young Star boutique, removed all Guevara merchandise after Cubans complained.
"My boss was under the misunderstanding that the Cubans would like those shirts," Lee explains. "We depend on the community and if they are offended by something we sell, we're not going to sell it."
Young Star's response was appreciated. "They showed us respect," said Sergio Alonso, a Cuban-American. "So next time we buy a shirt, where do you think we're going to go?"
Despite the Cuban wrath, Posadas' business seems unlikely to suffer. He says he has many young customers, a good number of whom "don't even know who Che was, but they have seen people wearing it and they buy it because they think it looks cool."
'The image of hatred'
For others, wearing a Guevara garment is more than fashion. It's a statement.
"El Che is a revolutionary symbol," said Douglas Fuentes, 38, "and I consider myself a revolutionary."
Fuentes' Palisades Park apartment is a gallery of Guevara paraphernalia - posters, photos, coins, medals, refrigerator magnets - all with Guevara's face. He drives a van covered with Guevara's likeness. Almost all his clothing has some representation of Guevara. When he takes off his shirt, the image remains - on his tattooed back.
Fuentes says he has idolized the guerrilla leader since his youth in El Salvador. His favorite slogan is "Seremos como El Che" - We will be like Che. His hair down to his shoulders, Fuentes admits he even tries to look like his hero, who was killed while trying to start a revolution in Bolivia in 1967.
Just eight miles away, the walls of the Union City headquarters of the Association of Former Cuban Political Prisoners are covered with very different images: the photographs of Cubans executed by firing squads under Guevara's command.
Here, the Cuban old guard ridicule Guevara fans as "useful fools" - a vintage Communist term that described gullible people who fall for the romantic appeal of leftist firebrands.
"There is something wrong with a society in which people wear shirts with the image of someone who preached hatred and enjoyed killing," says Armando Alvarez of West New York, who was at the hall for a meeting of anti-Castro organizations.
"It's like wearing a Hitler shirt," Alvarez adds. "Che always said that to be a good revolutionary, you had to hate. And so when they wear the image of Che, they wear the image of hatred."
Standing by Che
On the subject of Che Guevara, Fuentes and Cuban-Americans are like oil and water. Fuentes tells of the countless times he has been confronted by Cubans who feel offended by his clothing, from "the woman who shouted at me from her Mercedes" to "the Cuban judge who insulted me because I brought Che's image into his court."
He says that when Cuban-Americans get too combative, "I ask them why they are fighting with me, why don't they go fight in Cuba?"
Cuban-Americans counter with stories about the firing squads under Guevara's command at La Cabaña, the imposing Spanish fortress overlooking Havana Bay, where "enemies of the revolution" were executed in early 1959.
"There are many stories about the mothers who went to La Cabaña to inquire if their sons had been executed," Alvarez says. "When officers told them that their sons were to be executed in a few days, Che would say, 'Let's execute him right away so that she doesn't have to come back.'Ÿ"
Fuentes argues that the revolution had to eliminate its enemies. "Show me the revolution where people don't die," he says. "It's logical, they had to exterminate those from the previous government who represented a threat to the stability of the country."
Fuentes wants to turn his Guevara collection into a business, but one without a fixed address. He plans to sell merchandise on the Internet and through kiosks at Hispanic festivals. He won't open a storefront "because they might burn the place down."
Blood at La Cabaña
Carlos Barberia, a popular bandleader in Cuba and in exile, fled Havana in December 1959 when an airline friend got him a plane ticket to New York. Now he sells radio ads.
He recalls exactly when he started to hate Guevara. It was in the kitchen of the Havana Hilton Hotel, where Barberia was performing with his Kubavana Orchestra. It was also the temporary headquarters of Castro's guerrillas, who had come down from the Cuban mountains on Jan. 1, 1959, and declared victory.
"We would meet in the kitchen because we were all trying to get something to eat, but then we would talk," Barberia recalls. "And it was all fine until the day I told Fidel, with Che listening, that more blood was being spilled after the revolution than before."
It was a clear reference to Guevara's firing squads. The following morning, Barberia was summoned to a meeting with Guevara at La Cabaña.
"He met me at the officers' club, which was a beautiful place," Barberia says. "I had performed there many times. It had a glass wall overlooking the courtyard. But it was made that way for the time when La Cabaña was for tourists. Now the courtyard was used by the firing squad."
Barberia said Guevara asked him to join him for breakfast - then ordered two rare steaks and told Barberia to watch the courtyard.
"They brought four guys out, but when they shot the first one, I got up and I walked away," Barberia says. "A few days later, Che told Fidel, right in front of me, that |I must be gay or something, because I couldn't stand the sight of blood."
Weeks later, when Barberia was warned by a friend that Guevara's people were investigating him, the musician went into hiding.
"He knew I was against the regime and he was going to have me arrested," Barberia says, looking anguished. "When they couldn't find me, they took my father and had him shot."
E-mail: perez@northjersey.com
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