A popular haircut known as ‘The Edgar’ has sparked a huge backlash, with some restaurants and schools seeking to ban those who sport it.
The bowl-shaped style, which has been compared to the modern look of Moe from The Three Stooges and Spock from Star Trek, is often preferred by young Mexican-Americans known as ‘Edgars.’
But the trend is causing widespread division in Hispanic communities as locals increasingly link the haircut to crime, while others accuse critics of being racist.
In a now-deleted Instagram post, a San Antonio restaurant called for a ban on ‘Edgars’
Mikey Valdez, 18, has been identified as one of two shooters in a deadly shooting at Fiesta in San Antonio in April. Valdez was shot and killed by police who responded to the shooting between Valdez and another man.
In April, two gunmen shook the city of San Antonio after opening fire at a popular festival and shooting five innocent bystanders, according to local authorities.
One of the suspects, 18-year-old Mikey Valdez, an ‘Edgar’, had just been released from jail on unrelated vehicle theft charges and was killed along with his accomplice by police who rushed to protect the public.
Valdez and a second shooter ‘were having some kind of problem and decided to take him to Market Square, among all those people.’ Police Chief William McManus he declared after the shooting.
After the tumult, local restaurateur Ricky Ortiz posted a meme with a ‘no Edgars’ sign on social media, suggesting that he didn’t want anyone with this haircut at his popular restaurants El Camino, Bésame, Ay Que Chula and Perfect Tend.
“The Fiesta commission needs to fence everything, charge coverage and have a no Edgar policy,” Ortiz said of the organizers of the event Valdez addressed.
‘A good portion of the people in this town are absolute (trash can emoji). Make it unaffordable for them to even attend.’
But Ortiz’s comments received pushback in the largely Hispanic community, with some San Antonio residents accusing him of being racist.
“Imagine discriminating (against) your customers,” Instagram user @allsold0ut wrote, according to San Antonio Current.
‘Lol, you live in the city “Edgar”. This is a new form of racism.”
Ricky Ortiz, owner of El Camino and several other food establishments, later said he was just joking about not allowing Edgars into his business.
Several young men with ‘Edgar’ haircuts are suspects in a capital murder case in San Antonio, Texas, for a murder that occurred in May 2022, according to local station KENS 5.
But Ortiz, a first-generation American of Mexican parents, defended his comments.
“People who accuse me of racism speak from a place of ignorance,” he told the local publication.
“They don’t want to acknowledge or admit that most kids who cut their hair want to be in a culture that’s influenced by gang affiliation and things like that.”
You’re not alone: the anti-Edgar movement is spreading to other cities, too.
In El Paso, students led an effort to have the style banned at Riverside High School in 2021.
Despite gathering dozens of signatures, a ban was not achieved, but the initiative sparked a widespread debate about the new trend.
“Especially in El Paso, we’ve had a lot of crimes committed by people who just happened to have the same haircut,” said the administrator of El Paso’s most popular Instagram account, @therealfitfamElPaso, who asked to remain anonymous.
“Where we are now, we just correlate these guys with bad guys, even though there are a lot of good guys with the same cut.”
In a recent post about a shooting, the social media page’s administrator posted the photo of the suspect in jail, sporting the ‘Edgar.’
Comments included “of course he has an Edgar cut” and “the haircut adds up.”
Students at Riverside High School in El Paso led an unsuccessful attempt to ban Edgar from their campus in 2021
El Paso Steakpedo’s joked about preventing future Edgars through the power of tipping
The Edgar trend began to appear in 2019 and gained popularity during the pandemic, explained the creator of @therealfitfamElPaso.
The style is believed to have received its nickname from Major League Baseball player Edgar Martínez, a former player for the Seattle Mariners, according to aol.com.
A young customer asked a hairdresser to etch the player’s image on the back of his head in a video that went viral.
Still, others argue that the style has Native American roots, specifically the Jumano tribe who lived in the Lone Star State between the 1500s and 1700s.
“The haircut and aesthetic could be interpreted as a resistance to Western notions of beauty or style,” Sonya M. Alemán, an associate professor of race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Texas, told the Dallas Morning News. in San Antonio.
The ‘Edgar’ haircut is believed to have received its name after a young man from Puerto Rico asked his barber to etch the MLB player’s face into his head.
Regardless of its origin, it’s unclear whether the controversial hairstyle is a dying trend or here to stay.
One barber, Carlos Flores, 19, in Kyle, Texas, said he receives an average of seven requests a day for ‘Edgar’ haircuts from young Mexican-Americans in central Texas.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t get an ‘Edgar haircut,'” he told NBC News.
