wheres che? politics, pop culture, and public memory in...

Where’s Che? Politics, Pop Culture, andPublic Memory in Rosario, Argentina

byEric D. Carter

Photographs by the author unless otherwise noted

In 1928, just before delivering her firstchild, Celia de la Serna and her husband,Ernesto Guevara Lynch, abandoned theirrustic homestead in the territory of Misi-ones for the relative comforts of Rosario,Argentina. Here, on June 14, their sonErnesto was born. His first home, a luxu-rious three-bedroom apartment, befittedhis parents’ aristocratic status. Setting thepattern for an itinerant life, baby Ernestospent just a few months in his birthplace,leaving Rosario before he could evenwalk. Life would take him to Misiones,Cordoba, and Buenos Aires, his otherhomes in Argentina; to Chile, Peru, Ecua-dor, and Colombia, as a young adult dis-covering the social inequalities of SouthAmerica; to Guatemala, Mexico, theCongo, and most famously, to Cuba, as acommunist revolutionary; and finally toLa Higuera, Bolivia, where he met his endat the hands of the Bolivian army in 1967.To most of the world, young ErnestoGuevara de la Serna would be knownsimply as ‘‘Che,’’ a name that has becomelegendary, thanks to the rich ‘‘afterlife’’ ofhis iconic image, reproduced endlessly ont-shirts and posters.

Che Guevara is undoubtedly the mostfamous person from Rosario, Argentina.Arguably, he achieved greater influencethan any other Argentinean, living ordead. Reproductions of the iconic photo-graph taken by the Cuban Alberto Kordain 1961 have made Che even larger indeath than in life (Casey 2009). Yet despitehis world-historical significance, it tooksome thirty years after his death to honorChe Guevara publicly in the city of hisbirth. Why did it take Rosario so long torecognize its most famous ‘‘native son’’?Why, and in what manner, is Che honoredin the public spaces of Rosario today?And, what does the commemoration ofChe as a ‘‘local legend’’ say about the stateof political life and popular culture inArgentina today?

To begin to answer these questions, itis crucial to place the use of Che’s memorywithin the broader political context ofArgentina since his death in 1967. Memo-ries of high levels of political violence fromthe 1960s to the 1980s made Che aninflammatory figure for a generation ofmiddle-class Argentines. For years thepreference was to repress memories ofthese intense, often savage times, and thismade Che a sensitive topic simply foreveryday conversation, making thoughtsof official commemoration impossible. Torefashion public spaces in his honorrequired not simply the passage of timeand generational change, but also adomestication of Che’s image. This trans-formation, which was accomplishedthrough the influence of popular culture,particularly sports, music, movies, andtourism, made remembrance possible.However, consumer culture cannot com-pletely erase his principal identity as a fire-

brand of revolution against capitalism andimperialism. As a result, Che continues tostir controversy while becoming a usefulsymbol for the reenergized Argentine left.

Che and Rosario: A Personal Observation

Since 1995, I have traveled frequentlyto Rosario, a working-class city largelypopulated by the descendants of Italianand Spanish immigrants (Figure 1).Despite being home to over a million peo-ple, Rosario has long lived in the shadowof Argentina’s major metropolis, BuenosAires, just 300 km down the Parana River.While my research projects have usuallytaken me to other parts of Argentina, Ihave tended to approach Rosario less as afocus for scholarship than as a place toperiodically strengthen and renew thebonds of family and friendship, and toenjoy the company of the garrulous,sarcastic, and frequently entertaining

Figure 1. View of Rosario, from an island on the Parana River.

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residents of the city, the Rosarinos. But Ihave always kept an eye open for changesin the city, and one of those big shifts isthe recent growth of ‘‘Che mania.’’ So, theresearch presented here grows out of mylongtime exposure to the middle-classmilieu of Rosario, which I have come toknow in intimate detail.

Yet at the same time, I know that myimmersion in the habits and worldviewsof one class of people presents a source ofbias, so I have supplemented my ownobservations and impressions with inter-views, news reports, and essays on CheGuevara, emphasizing sources from Rosa-rio, such as the local daily La Capital. Bio-graphical accounts by Jon Lee Anderson(1997) and Jorge Castaneda (1997), alongwith examinations of the depiction of Chein art (Kunzle 1997) and popular culture(Casey 2009), provide further insight intoGuevara’s life and legacy. That much ofmy source material comes from the inter-net does not, I think, diminish its rele-vance. In fact, as I discuss below, some ofthe most vivid debates about how Che isrepresented in the public spaces of the citytake place not in those same physicalspaces but in the raucous and relativelyunfiltered world of the web.

Global Culture, Local Commemoration

Che’s own biography and self-con-struction add special complications andtexture to the story of his commemoration.Che was born and raised in Argentina,and his national identity is a key biograph-ical detail. After all, his Cuban partners inthe revolutionary struggle called him‘‘Che’’ because it is the term Argentineanmen use to hail one another—’’Che, comoandas?’’—’’Hey man, how are you doing?’’But Che also crafted an image that wasmeant to transcend nationalism: more of aglobal citizen than an Argentinean.Though he is most identified with the suc-cessful Cuban Revolution, Che alsosojourned in Guatemala, Mexico, theCongo, and Bolivia, hoping to spark aworldwide revolution of peasants and pro-letarians, one country at a time. His dra-matic odyssey is an alluring part of hislegend. It even draws tourists to stage pil-grimages that reenact the journeys thatshaped his philosophy and mission in life.At a deeper level, Che was the avatar forhis own ideal of El Hombre Nuevo or ‘‘TheNew Man’’: that is, a man who wouldeschew the essential trappings of modernlife, including a national identity. As his

daughter Aleida puts it, ‘‘my father was aman who transcended all geographicboundaries … this man smashes borders’’(Guevara March 2007). If, as the journalistMichael Casey contends, Che’s image is aproduct of a communal global culture,then commemorating Che in Rosario pre-sents a kind of paradox: How does a place‘‘lay claim’’ to someone who, in life and indeath, has resisted being tied down to aparticular place or nation?

Nonetheless, with increasing urgency,the city of Rosario has tried to lay claim tothe elusive legend of its prodigal son, byrefashioning public spaces to mark his lifeand legend. There are three sites that ‘‘offi-cially’’ commemorate Che Guevara in Ro-sario: the apartment building where hewas born, the nearby Plaza de la Coopera-cion, and a small plaza at Parque Yrigoyenthat features his likeness in bronze(Figure 2). Each of these places tells aunique story about how, when, and whyGuevara was remembered, and of thechanging politics of public space in the city.

The Birthplace

The home where Guevara was born,on the corner of Entre Rios and Urquizastreets, would be an obvious focal pointfor commemoration (Figure 3). Yet untilquite recently, the owners of the building

have resisted every effort to make this apublic space. For years, the site of Che’sbirth was known to locals by word ofmouth but there were no tangible markersof its historical significance, such as a brassplaque, an otherwise commonplace sightin Argentine cities. It is an elegant andimmaculately-maintained building, but notone that stands out from other exemplarsof the Parisian-style architecture of theearly 1900s, which is seen frequently in thedowntown area. As is often the case in Ro-sario, the narrow and busy sidewalks,along with the proximity of the facade tothe street, prevent a lingering appreciationof the building’s features. Moreover, forsome admirers of Che, the conditions ofhis birthplace may be problematic, sincehe was born into comfort. If the circum-stances of Che’s death evoke a Christ-likemartyrdom (Casey 2009; Kunzle 1997), hisbirthplace is no humble manger. Indeed,Che’s most steadfast critics often dwell onhis bourgeois upbringing, which suppos-edly made him an inauthentic communist.

Tellingly, the building itself still bearsno mark of Che. After much negotiation,the municipal government placed a banneron the street that reads, ‘‘Casa Natal ‘Che’Guevara,’’ (Birth home of ‘‘Che’’ Guevara),under the iconic Korda image, in 2008(Figure 4). The logo of the city governmentand the phrase ‘‘Rosario Ciudad Natal del

Figure 2. Map of Rosario and Argentina (inset). Sites of Che Guevara commemoration notedwith Che icons. Map by the author.

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‘Che’ Guevara’’ give the location an offi-cial imprimatur and a link to other com-memorative sites in the city. The redbanner evokes socialism, but ironically thecolor scheme complements the logo of aninsurance company, MAPFRE, which hasoffices on the ground floor. Just across thestreet, the ‘‘Che Guevara’’ Hostel, cateringmainly to foreign backpackers, bears his

logo even more conspicuously, on signsand banners (Figure 5).

The Plaza

Perhaps because the Casa Natal is prob-lematic as a public space, the first officialcommemoration of Che’s birth in Rosariowasmade in 1997, at the Plaza de la Cooper-

acion just two blocks away. There, a marbleplaque dedicated in 1997 bears a stylized sil-houette of the Korda Che and the inscrip-tion, ‘‘A few meters away from this plaza,Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, a Rosarino whofought for a more just and unified society,was born.’’ But the standout artwork in thePlaza is a large portrait of Che by the Argen-tinean artist Ricardo Carpani (Figure 6). In

Figure 3. The building where Che Guevara was born, on the corner of Entre Rios and Urquiza. Figure 4. Commemorative banner in front ofChe Guevara’s first home.

Figure 5. The ‘‘Che Guevara’’ Hostel, across the street from his birth home.

Figure 6. Mural of Che by Ricardo Carpani in thePlaza de la Cooperacion.


this portrait, Che’s facial features are elabo-rately textured in shades of gray, as if buffedto a fine polish on glass, in contrast with theflatness of the ubiquitous Korda image. Car-pani first painted this image not in Rosario,but in New York City in 1989, as part of alarger mural (since destroyed) depictingrevolutionary heroes on the leftist Path-finder Press Building (Kunzle 1997, p. 26).The portrait in the Rosario plaza was com-pleted by others after Carpani’s death in1997.

Most people, I think, do not find thistiny park very inviting or attractive. Overthe years, I have seen it busy only at night,full of teenagers biding their time until thenearby nightclubs open. The Plaza takeson a different character at night: let’s justsay it has lots of dark corners for doingthings you wouldn’t want to be caughtdoing. What is alluring at night seemsstrange in the daylight. The Plaza has apeculiar angular geometry: the entranceand main axial walkways are oriented 45degrees to the street, and diamond, pyra-mid, and ‘‘V’’ patterns abound, painted orformed with bricks (Figure 7). Oddly,there are sculptures of giant ants climbingthe skeletal steel pyramid that marks thepark entrance. Except at its edges, where itis landscaped with trees and shrubs, thePlaza is made of bricks and cement; thisstyle, in Argentina, is called plaza seca, or‘‘dry plaza.’’ Only Che’s portrait, the giantants, and a tiled painting of the VirginMary break up the coldness and angular-ity of the space. One of my friendsexplained the origins of this strange space:a mayor, who had been installed by themilitary dictatorship, commissioned thePlaza in the early 1980s on the site of anold public market. The mayor happened tobe a member of the Freemasons, and thusthe Plaza reflects the distinctive aestheticof this so-called ‘‘secret society.’’

The Monumental Statue

So, since the Casa Natal resists recog-nition, and the Plaza de la Cooperacion issomewhat bewildering, these places didnot satisfy the desire to properly commem-orate Che. The most recent monument toChe, which might turn out to be the mostunambiguous and permanent memorial tohim in Rosario, is located in ParqueYrigoyen, in the city’s vast, working-classZona Sur. Here, a bronze statue by theArgentine sculptor Andres Zerneri standsin a plaza that now officially bears Guev-ara’s name (Figures 8, 9). The locationitself has no special significance in the life

of Che, but the story of how the statuecame to be there reveals a lot about thepublic affirmation of Che in Argentinesociety today. Zerneri conceptualized thework as ‘‘public’’ art in a very concreteway. Rather than accepting a commissionfrom a private foundation or the govern-

ment, Zerneri sought the collaboration of‘‘the people’’ from the beginning of theproject. He initiated a campaign for dona-tions of old keys and other small pieces ofbrass, from all over Argentina, to meltdown and forge the bronze statue in hisstudio in Buenos Aires. In just over a year

Figure 7. Plaza de la Cooperacion.

Figure 8. Statue of Che by Andres Zerneri in Parque Yrigoyen, on Che’s 83rd birthday, June14, 2011. Photo courtesy of Cristian Bilbao.


he collected the three and a half tons ofmetal (‘‘the equivalent of 75,000 doorkeys’’) necessary for the 4-meter-high sta-tue. Via the internet, donors got to vote onwhere the statue would stand, and ‘‘over-whelmingly’’ chose Rosario (Casey 2009,p. 156).

The dedication of the statue was syn-chronized with ceremonies celebratingwhat would have been Che’s eightiethbirthday in June 2008. The hoopla thatattended the transfer of the Che Guevarastatue from Buenos Aires to the park inRosario was, by far, the most widespread,jubilant, and rambunctious expression ofadmiration for Che in Argentina to thatpoint. In Buenos Aires, Che’s statue wasgiven a farewell parade. Bedecked in flow-ers and Argentine flags, held fast to themoving truck with orange canvas straps,Che’s statue was carried by his faithfulattendants down monumental avenuesand through historic plazas of the city.Instead of being transported by truck, aswith most domestic goods, Che’s statuewas lifted onto a boat at the port ofBuenos Aires and shipped along theParana River to Rosario.

The reception at the port of Rosario,eagerly anticipated for days, was a displayof political iconography, historical symbol-ism, and popular sentiment. Strapped tothe deck, overlooking the bow, Cheseemed to be captaining the boat, ratherthan being simply carried by it (La Capital2008a). Probably some in the crowd werestirred by the memory of the Granma, thebarely seaworthy yacht that Che, FidelCastro, and other rebels sailed from Mex-ico to Cuba in 1956 to challenge the Batistaregime (Figure 10). Spectators, holding uppolitical party banners and mostly wearingthe colors of Argentina or of the soccerclub Rosario Central, initiated the paradethrough the city to the awaiting pedestalin Yrigoyen Park (Figure 11). For the nextten days, members of a socialist youthgroup kept vigil over the statue until itsofficial dedication on his birthday (Juven-tud Guevarista de Rosario 2011).

The official act attracted living links toGuevara’s personal history, in particularhis daughter, Aleida Guevara March, andhis old friend Alberto Granado. At thededication ceremony, Aleida spoke fondlyof her father while condemning ongoinginjustices in Argentine society. She and afew other dignitaries were allowed to tourthe apartment where her father was born,and they dedicated the red banner mark-ing the site (pers. comm., Sonia Pedrido,

Figure 9. Statue of Che in Parque Yrigoyen, with the old Central Cordoba railway station in thebackground. Photo courtesy of Cristian Bilbao.

Figure 10. Statue of Che arriving at the port of Rosario in June 2008. The sculptor, AndresZerneri, holds up a key to symbolize the thousands of keys and other donated pieces of brass thatwent into the statue. Photo courtesy of Juventud Guevarista de Rosario.


February 2011). Granado, Che’s compan-ion on the famous 1952 tour of SouthAmerica that inspired the 2004 film, ‘‘TheMotorcycle Diaries,’’ also traveled fromCuba, where he had relocated from Argen-tina years ago. Representatives from left-wing organizations all over Latin Americatraveled to Rosario, which temporarilybecame the ‘‘world center’’ of Che’s eighti-eth birthday festivities. The fact that Rosa-rio has a socialist mayor, albeit one whoadvocates a centrist version of socialismthat Che himself might have scorned,surely helped to facilitate the organizationof these official ceremonies.

Legacies of Authoritarianism and theMemory of Che

Reflecting on the recent acts of com-memoration in Rosario, and the scant con-spicuous opposition to them, led me towonder: Why did it take so long? To reallyunderstand the long delay in recognizingChe in Rosario, we must examine politicaland cultural changes in Argentina over the

last few decades. Since the return to civil-ian rule in 1983, Argentina has been deal-ing with the legacy of the Proceso, alsoknown as the Dirty War. This was a cam-paign carried out by the military govern-ment of Argentina to rub out ‘‘subversive’’elements of society. The middle class lar-gely supported, or at least silently con-doned, the suppression of armed rebelsand urban guerrillas that destabilizedArgentina in the early 1970s. But the list ofgovernment victims that were tortured,killed, or sent into exile would eventuallyinclude thousands of left-wing political fig-ures, union leaders, student radicals, femi-nists, journalists, intellectuals, and artists.Most chillingly, many orphans of the ‘‘dis-appeared’’ were secretly adopted byfriends and family of the military. In thisrepressive and conservative environment,‘‘Che was totally off-limits’’ (Casey 2009,p. 140).

Many in Argentina, especially a con-servative segment of the middle class,recall with trepidation the anarchy andinsecurity of the guerrilla warfare of the

1970s. Older Rosarinos have vivid memo-ries of bombings, armed robberies, kidnap-pings, and assassinations in the cityduring this period of political chaos. Fromtheir perspective, Che Guevara instigatedand inspired armed revolution, not onlythrough his words and deeds in life, butalso in the way his image as revolutionarymartyr was used after his death. To them,Che is no hero, but rather a deluded ideo-logue, murderer, and principal figure inthe cycles of political violence that prolifer-ated in Argentina (and other parts of LatinAmerica) into the 1980s.

This anti-Guevara perspective hasbeen advanced by influential intellectualssuch as Carlos Alberto Montaner (2008), aCuban exile, and Alvaro Vargas Llosa(2005), a Peruvian essayist and son ofNobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa. But inArgentina, both condemnation and cele-bration of Che Guevara were mostly subli-mated, until quite recently, as part of ageneral self-censorship of discussion of theDirty War. Despite well-known efforts toair grievances and clarify historical facts,such as Nunca Mas, the official report onthe Dirty War authored by the late Argen-tine writer Ernesto Sabato, in reality thepolitical events of the 1970s and early1980s caused such damage to the country’spsyche that most people simply did notwant to talk about it. Even for thoseArgentines not explicitly opposed to Guev-ara’s politics, the legacy of state terror andrepression had made them ‘‘fearful toadmit their relationship’’ with Che (Casey2009, p. 149). At the same time, Argen-tina’s political left, damaged and dismem-bered after the Dirty War, tended todisavow socialist policies and symbolicconnections with the radical left as itsought a return to power. Personifying thistrend, Carlos Menem squelched the left-wing elements of his own party, the Per-onists, and instead put Argentina on thepath towards pro-business, free-marketreforms, known as neoliberalism. In thiscontext of weakness on the left and thegeneral unwillingness of Argentine societyto deal frankly with the legacies of insur-gency and state terror, there was no politi-cal space for commemorating CheGuevara.

Che’s Popular Revival

Che began to creep his way back intothe consciousness of Rosarinos, andArgentines more generally, from the mar-gins, through popular culture. Soccer, thenational game, was instrumental in Che’s

Figure 11. Che’s statue on parade along Avenida Pellegrini, one of the city’s major thorough-fares, June 2008. Photo courtesy of Juventud Guevarista de Rosario.


eventual resurrection. As the geographerChristopher Gaffney (2008, p. 126) dis-cusses, a soccer team’s youngest, most pas-sionate fans, the team’s barra brava,invariably sit in the cheapest seats behindthe goal. In this rowdy, noisy, and verymasculine space, almost anything goes—short of cheering for the other team—so itis a space where the airing of subversivechants, songs, and images is not onlyacceptable, but de rigueur. In this ‘‘humantide,’’ carried on by youthful energy, theimage of Che is commonplace. As Casey(2009, p. 165) described one soccer matchin Buenos Aires:

‘‘The jumping, singing, and chantingfans, all waving their arms in unison atthe nonstop rhythm of drums, unite toform a single heaving mass of human-ity, a living organism. And if you lookclosely enough, Che is there, deepinside it. Views of his face periodicallyflash from thousands of colored flagsfluttering in the stands, or it stares outfrom bare chests and shoulders, wherehis image is tattooed alongside teamcrests.’’

The fans who compose the barra bravaare often among the poorest and most dis-contented of society. In the figure of Che,they find aliento, or encouragement, and,as writer Ruben Mira quoted in Casey(2009) puts it, the Argentine spirit of agu-ante, which connotes a ‘‘sense of dignityand inner strength in the face of hardship’’(p. 167).

Although Che’s likeness and spirit isfound among the passionate fans of manysoccer teams in Argentina and other coun-tries, he has a special yet disputed connec-tion to Rosario. The city has two majorrival teams, Rosario Central and Newell’sOld Boys. Dedication to one team, andhatred of the other, is formed at an earlyage. Supporters of Central have longclaimed Che Guevara as one of their own.During games at their home stadium, ElGrande del Arroyito, fans fly a large ban-ner featuring a caricature of Che as onethe tres grandes; the ‘‘three biggest fans’’ ofCentral, along with Fito Paez, a popularsinger, and Alberto Olmedo, a comic actorwho died in 1988 (Figure 12). His likenesshere, smiling and affable, is radically dif-ferent from the stoic and sagacious lookwe have come to associate with Che, afterrepeated exposures to the Korda image. Itserves to humanize him. Other images,painted on the walls of the city, portraythe Korda icon in the blue and yellow of

Central. While the usual red and blackcolor scheme evokes socialism, in Rosariothese are the colors of Newell’s Old Boys.Naturally, Rosario Central supportersproved to be the loudest and most color-fully dressed contingent escorting the Chestatue during inauguration festivities in2008.

Arguably, the hottest controversiesabout Che Guevara in cyberspace relatenot to his political ideas or deeds on thebattlefield, but to his putative status as acanalla. This insulting term, which RosarioCentral fans defiantly adopted as theirnickname, means something like ‘‘riff-raff’’or ‘‘low-down, dirty dog.’’ Fans of Ne-well’s (known as leprosos, or ‘‘lepers’’)wonder, indignantly, how someone whobarely set foot in Rosario after his infancycould be considered a true fan of Central.Under the weight of hostile rhetoric andname-calling, most online comments aboutvideos relating to Che and Rosario Centralhave been expunged. Journalists inter-viewing Che’s close friend Alberto Grana-do during his last visits to Argentinashowed more interest in verifying Che’spassion for Central than in explaining hissocialist philosophy (see, for example, ElCların 2008). While Che’s role in a sportsrivalry may seem trivial, his connectionto Central, though contested, helps tostrengthen his identification with the city.

Simply being born there was a historicalcoincidence, but he chose to call himself acanalla, and by extension, a Rosarino.

Changing portrayals of Che in thepopular media have also helped to softenhis image and make it more sociallyacceptable. Since the 1990s Che Guevarahas been present in Argentine rockmusic—for example, the band ResistenciaSuburbana penned an ode to Che Guevaracalled ‘‘La union verdadera’’ (‘‘The TrueUnion’’)—but these musical representa-tions of Che came from the social fringes,indeed from the same alienated youthwho populate the cheap seats at soccermatches. What really transformed Che’simage, internationally and in Argentina,was the release of the film ‘‘The Motor-cycle Diaries’’ in 2004. Based on his own,posthumously published memoirs, themovie depicts Guevara and his closefriend Alberto Granado traveling acrossSouth America on their Norton motorcyclein 1952. As played by the Mexican actorGael Garcia Bernal, Che is a quietly hand-some, sensitive, and idealistic young doc-tor, struck by the social injustices hewitnesses along the way. The trip servesas an epiphany and launches Che on hislife mission as peripatetic revolutionary.But, crucially, in the movie we see Chebefore he became a hardened, war-testedguerrilla. Beautifully depicted tropical

Figure 12. Sticker caricaturing the three ‘‘big’’ fans of Rosario Central (known as canallas),Alberto Olmedo, Fito Paez, and Che Guevara.


landscapes and a gentle yet stirring musi-cal score further emphasize the feeling ofhistorical distance. Popular worldwide, themovie presented an ‘‘unknown side’’ ofthe famous personage, according to theArgentine newspaper El Cların. As Grana-do told the paper, the film lowered Chefrom his mythic status, depicting himinstead as a ‘‘person of flesh and bone,with virtues and defects’’ (Febre 2004).

The movie, along with Che’s connec-tion to soccer and consumer culture,helped complete the domestication of Che’simage. On the heels of the social unrest,political turmoil, and state terror that cul-minated in the Dirty War, Che’s image as arevolutionary, willing to use violent meansto achieve power, made him unacceptable.But the sensitive portrayal of the youngChe, before revolution, made him seemharmless by comparison. Of course, manyin Argentine society continued to cling tothe more defiant and revolutionary image,but mainstream society now had anotherreference point, a different kind of Che thatthey could embrace, or at least tolerate.

Souvenirs of an Unfinished Revolution:Che Tourism

‘‘The Motorcycle Diaries’’ undoubt-edly helped accelerate another key trend:Che tourism. After Argentina’s economiccrisis of 2001–2002 prompted a severe cur-rency devaluation, the country became apopular tourist destination. One segmentof the tourist market, predominantlyyouthful idealists, has sought to retracethe route of young Che’s motorcycle jour-ney and visit other important sites of hisearly life (e.g., Lınea Capital 2011). In thelast decade, museums dedicated to Chehave opened in his boyhood homes in theprovinces of Misiones and Cordoba. Thelatter museum, in the town of Alta Gracia,received a special boost when Fidel Castroand Hugo Chavez visited in 2006, and itbecame the final resting place for AlbertoGranado’s ashes in 2011.

For its part, Rosario began to capital-ize on Che seekers just as the city’s touristtrade was suddenly booming. Comparedto Buenos Aires, Iguazu Falls, or Pata-gonia, Rosario was never a popular desti-nation for tourists. Through the 1990sRosario was a depressed city dealing withthe lingering effects of deindustrialization:high unemployment, disused and out-dated infrastructure, and rampant poverty.It was hard to picture this dilapidatedinland port city becoming a major attrac-tion. Then, in the last decade, a number of

factors converged to spur tourism. Theeconomic collapse of December 2001 pro-duced a currency devaluation that loweredthe cost for foreign visitors and increasedinternal demand, as fewer Argentineswere able to travel abroad for vacations.Despite economic troubles, a boom in thesoybean industry and the completion of amajor bridge across the Parana River havesolidified Rosario’s role as a regional hub.Finally, the local government has made aconcerted effort to promote tourism, par-ticularly by rehabilitating the waterfrontand filling it with cafes, bars, restaurants,and parks with views of the impressiveParana River, wider here than the Missis-sippi at New Orleans. As a result, thenumber of rooms available in hotels andhostels has increased dramatically, andduring important holidays there are oftenno vacancies, an occurrence almostunheard of a decade ago.

The image of Che has been an impor-tant part of the ‘‘branding’’ of Rosario as atourist destination. The outside flap of theofficial tourist map issued by city featuresthe Che Guevara statue alongside imagesof the new casino, the bridge over the Pa-rana River, and the city’s most well-knownsite, the Monumento a la Bandera, themassive monument to the Argentine flag(Figure 13). Dozens of hostels, cateringespecially to foreign backpackers, havesprung up in reconverted apartment build-ings in the city center (including HostelGuevara). There is also a brisk trade inChe-branded souvenirs that link him toeveryday habits of Argentine life, such aspostcard photographs of a bare-chestedChe drinking yerba mate, the nationaldrink, or a leather-bound yerba mate kitbearing his image (Figure 14). Recently,Rosario signed onto the national Ministryof Tourism’s project, ‘‘Los Caminos delChe’’ (The Paths of Che), which promotesChe-related destinations as points on a tra-vel itinerary (La Capital 2009; Argentina,Minsterio de Turismo 2011). Rosario’shead of tourism, Hector De Benedictis, hasembellished Che’s biography somewhat toplay up the city’s claim on him. As he toldLa Capital, ‘‘ ‘In Rosario Che had friends,girlfriends, lovers … he never discon-nected himself from the city’ … And Rosa-rio, for its part, never repudiated Che,a link that now opens up an opportunity‘to reference itself as a city with a passionfor politics’ ‘‘ (Dezorzi 2011). Thus the CheGuevara ‘‘brand’’ is so malleable that itcan even be used to define the identityof the city—at least for the purposes oftourism.

Tourism promoters may want to treatpolitical life simply as one attribute of abrand identity, but substantive politicalchange—namely, a leftward lurch innational politics—is the other necessaryingredient, along with the domesticationof Che’s image in popular culture and itsrebranding for tourism, that make it per-missible to commemorate Che in publicspaces. The first decade of the 2000s wit-nessed the resurgence of left-wing popu-lism throughout the continent, led byHugo Chavez of Venezuela, Evo Moralesof Bolivia, and the Kirchners of Argentina.If one common thread unites them, it isconfronting outside geopolitical and eco-nomic influence, usually attributed to U.S.imperialism. The new populists havepushed back against the agenda of global-ization and free-market reform, which theybelieve was orchestrated by the U.S. andEurope. This is not merely a rhetoricalmaneuver: Nestor Kirchner, who assumedthe Argentine presidency in 2003, stood upto the IMF and let Argentina default on itsforeign debts. Meanwhile, the region’s left-ist governments have pursued policies ofmutual financial assistance, much of itderived from the great oil revenues thatChavez controls, to reduce the influence ofthe United States in Latin America’s eco-nomic policy. The imperious demeanor ofGeorge W. Bush and the widespread repu-diation of U.S. military intervention in Iraqand Afghanistan elevated anti-Americansentiment to a fever pitch in a countryalready reeling from economic meltdown.Latin America’s New Left has been eagerto embrace Che as a symbol of the struggleagainst yanqui imperialism, but with rheto-ric mostly stripped of Guevara’s Marxistideology.

Of course, not everyone in Rosarioagrees with Che’s message. Soon after itsopening, the Che Guevara Hostel was hitwith fire from an air rifle, according to itsowner (pers. comm. Sonia Pedrido, Feb.2011). In January of 2011, the Che Guevaramonument in Rosario was defaced withgraffiti for at least the third time (Rosa-rio3.com 2011). Reflecting the ideologicalroots of the controversy, the name ‘‘F. A.Hayek’’ (author of the Road to Serfdom, afoundational text for free-market propo-nents such as Margaret Thatcher) had beenscrawled across an allegorical mural of the‘‘open veins of Latin America,’’ a referenceto a classic anti-imperialist tract by Edu-ardo Galeano (1971), which also happensto be Hugo Chavez’s favorite book. Mem-bers of a small libertarian political partyclaimed responsibility. As of June 2011,


the colorful murals, and the graffiti thatdefaced them, had been covered over withgray paint by city authorities, significantlyreducing the attractiveness and overt polit-ical expression of the plaza.

Che in the Chatroom

In reality, most of the debate overChe’s memory does not take place in thepublic spaces that pay tribute to him.Instead, impassioned debates over the leg-acy of Che have shifted mainly to cyber-space, for example on the message boardof La Capital or comments under YouTubevideos. Here, Che’s detractors seem to out-number his supporters. One commentatorsuccinctly captured a widely-felt reactionto the arrival of Zerneri’s statue of Che inRosario: ‘‘How shameful. The city has amonument to a murderer’’ (La Capital2008a). This is apparently a reference tothe summary executions that Che orderedof Batista collaborators following the

Cuban revolution. Along the same lines,many condemn his actions as a ‘‘terroristguerrilla’’ and communist revolutionary,guilty by association with the genocides ofStalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. Another mainline of argument against Che challengesthe authenticity, depth, and value of hisconnection to Rosario: ‘‘What did Che dofor the city?’’ asks one Rosarino (La Capital2008b). Would it not be better to honorother local heroes, such as outstanding sci-entists and physicians, who really left theirmark on the city? Others criticize the socia-list economic program that Che helped toinstitute in Cuba, with many seeing paral-lels to the policies of the Kirchners’ Argen-tina.

Whether it is for or against Che, thisgenre of commentary revolves aroundgrappling with the facts of Che’s life. In asense, it is a continuation of the seriousideological debates that had such life-and-death consequences during the 1960sand 1970s. For these people, as William

Faulkner put it in Requiem for a Nun,‘‘The past is never dead. It is not evenpast.’’ But if such attitudes were stilldominant, then it is unlikely that Chewould be commemorated as he has beenin Rosario. Instead, most Rosarinos—atleast, the ones who aren’t completelyindifferent to the whole matter—havereached an accommodation with Che as ahistorical figure. To recognize his fame,and Rosario’s share of it, does not neces-sarily imply condoning his actions. Suchan attitude reflects an increasing tolerancein Argentina’s political culture, a healthysign of a maturing democracy. Manyview the matter with a postmodern sensi-bility of ironic detachment, understandingthat it is now impossible to separate Cheas a legend, icon, or logo from the factsof his life. Still others observe the Che-mania in Rosario with profound cynicism.As one successful young entrepreneurfrom Rosario told me, the city’s variousChe-related sites are just ‘‘points of sale’’

Figure 13. Monumento a la Bandera (Monument to the ArgentineFlag), which is Rosario’s most-visited tourist attraction.

Figure 14. Yerba mate carrying case featuring the iconic Korda image ofChe, Argentine flag, and script ‘‘Rosario,’’ in a shop window.


manufactured by tourism promoters, tostroke the ‘‘rebellious’’ self-image of mid-dle-class dilettantes, from Argentina andabroad.

The Che Legacy

In any event, the memory of Che Guev-ara is becoming an ordinary and acceptedpart of the urban landscape of Rosario. In2008, a medical clinic bearing his nameopened up in the outskirts of Rosario, sur-rounded by the villas miserias or slums thatdominate the area. In 2010, a communityradio station, ‘‘Radio Popular Che Guev-ara’’ began broadcasting from Rosario,with the mission of ‘‘counteracting thebourgeois disinformation machine.’’Around the same time, the National Uni-versity of Rosario inaugurated the CheGuevara Center for Latin American Stud-ies, part of a network of leftist academiccenters at Argentine universities. Even thenew superhighway from Rosario to Cordo-ba officially bears his name, though it is notin common usage. And, the city recentlydedicated a commemorative plaque in theRose Garden of Parque Independencia, aspot whose fame rests on the claim thatGuevara and Granado were photographedthere as they set off on their motorcyclejourney (La Capital 2011). This latest actsuggests that the line between life and art isblurred completely when it comes toChe—the site seems to commemorate aphotograph capturing a journey madefamous by a movie—and perhaps validatesthe notion that tourism promoters go togreat lengths to invent new ‘‘points of sale’’for Che seekers.

Although he still sparks controversyand debate, Che Guevara has beenclaimed as a ‘‘native son’’ of Rosario. Aswe have seen, the acknowledgement andcelebration of Che required the domestica-tion of his image through popular culture,an active rebranding effort by the localtourism industry, and substantive politicalchange, especially the rise of the new LatinAmerican left and a more open reckoningwith the legacies of dictatorship. Com-memorating Che, in permanent and con-spicuous ways, in places where he actuallyposed for photographs or nestled in hiscrib, are part of the continuous process ofremaking Che’s image and meaning.Domesticating Che implies not only soft-ening—what detractors would call a selec-tive memory that ignores the worst of Cheas a revolutionary and a guerrilla—but

also lowering him from the realm of iconsand legends to the place of the ordinary,everyday Rosarino: the one who drinksyerba mate, loves his favorite soccer team,admires his mother, and goes on youthfuladventures. He was a man of ‘‘flesh andbone,’’ as Granado said.

But then again, Che was no ordinaryperson. Jean-Paul Sartre, no less, called him‘‘The most complete man of his age: helived his words, spoke his own actions, andhis story and the story of the world ran par-allel.’’ And of course, in death his legendhas grown to such proportions that theactual facts of his life sometimes seembeside the point. As Michael Casey (2009)has argued, Che has become a global‘‘brand,’’ and like all great brands, it isubiquitous and instantly recognizable; cre-ates a strong, emotional bond with the con-sumer; and is infinitely pliable, allowingpeople to find whatever meaning theywant within it. Yet, it would be a mistaketo say that Che has become merely a con-sumer icon, drained of all political mean-ing. Even to those who have only hazyknowledge of his biography, Che is a sym-bol of speaking truth to power, standingup for one’s convictions, and fighting socialinjustice. It is the power of these abstractand timeless ideas, ironically, that makethe concrete acts of remembrance and pil-grimage so important to so many people.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank CristianBilbao, Ruben Bilbao, Sonia Pedrido, Ju-ventud Guevarista de Rosario, MatthewTaylor, Dale Carter, Neela Nandyal, andthe manuscript reviewers for their assis-tance in preparing this manuscript.

References

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Casey, Michael 2009. Che’s Afterlife: TheLegacy of an Image. New York: Vintage.

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