A popular haircut known as 'The Edgar' has sparked a major backlash - with some restaurants and schools seeking to ban those who sport it.
The bowl-shaped style - which has been compared to a modern Moe of Three Stooges and Spock of Star Trek look - is typically favored by Mexican-American young men who are 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 at a deadly shooting at Fiesta in San Antonio in April. Valdez was shot and killed by police who responded to the gun battle between Valdez and another man
In April, two gunmen rattled 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 Mikey Valdez, 18, an 'Edgar', had just been let out of jail on unrelated car burglary charges and was killed alongside his accomplice by police who rushed in to protect the public.
Valdez and a second shooter 'had some sort of beef and decided to take it to Market Square, among all those people,' Police Chief William McManus stated after the shooting.
Following the melee, local restaurateur Ricky Ortiz posted a meme with a 'no Edgars' sign on social media, suggesting he did not want anyone with this haircut in his popular restaurants El Camino, Besame, Ay Que Chula and Perfect Tender.
'Fiesta commission needs to fence the whole thing off, charge a cover, and have a no Edgar policy,' Ortiz said of the organizers of the event Valdez targeted.
'A good chunk of the people in this city are absolute [trash can emoji]. Make it unaffordable for them to even attend.'
But Ortiz's comments received pushback in the majority Hispanic community, with some San Antonio residents accusing him of being a racist.
'Imagine discriminating [against] your customers,' Instagram user @allsold0ut wrote, according to San Antonio Current.
'Lol, you live in "Edgar" city. This is a new form of racism.'
Ricky Ortiz, the owner of El Camino and several other dining establishments, later said he was only 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 May 2022 murder, according to local station KENS 5
But Ortiz, a first-generation American of Mexican parents, defended his comments.
'People accusing me of racism are speaking from a place of ignorance,' he told the local publication.
'They don't want to acknowledge or admit that the majority of the kids that are getting these haircuts want to be in a culture influenced by gang affiliation and things like that.'
He is not alone, with the anti-Edgar movement spreading to other cities as well.
In El Paso, students led an effort to get the style banned from Riverside High School in 2021.
Despite gathering dozens of signatures, a ban was not forthcoming - but the initiative triggered a widespread debate about the new fad.
'Especially in El Paso, we've had a lot of crimes that were committed by people who just happened to have this same hair cut,said the administrator of El Paso's most popular Instagram account, @therealfitfamElPaso, who asked to remain anonymous.
'Where we are now, we just kind of correlate these guys to be bad dudes, even though there's plenty of good dudes with the same cut.'
In a recent post about a shooting, the administrator of the social media page posted the jail booking photo of the suspect, sporting the 'Edgar'.
Comments included 'of course he has an Edgar cut,' and 'haircut adds up.'
Riverside High School students in El Paso led a failed attempt to ban the Edgar from their campus in 2021
El Paso restaurant Steakpedo's joked about preventing future Edgars through the power of tipping
The Edgar trend started showing up in 2019 and gained popularity during the pandemic, @therealfitfamElPaso's creator explained.
The style is believed to have gotten its nickname from Major League Baseball player Edgar Martínez, a former Seattle Mariners player, according toaol.com.
A young client asked a barber to etch the player's likeness onto the back of his head in a video that went viral.
Still, others argue the look has Native American roots - specifically the Jumano tribe that lived in the Lone Star State between 1500s and 1700s.
'The haircut and aesthetic could be read as resisting Western notions of beauty or style,' Sonya M. Alemán, associate professor in race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio told the Dallas Morning News.
It's believed the 'Edgar' haircut got its name after a young man in Puerto Rico asked his barber to etch the MLB player's face on his head
@JeffGSpursZone Found this on Facebook. Looks like Edgar's even has a song now. pic.twitter.com/AF2it7GeGw
— ChiliConJuan (@ChiliConJuan) April 30, 2024
Regardless of its origin, it's unclear if the controversial hair style is a dying trend or here to stay.
One barber Carlos Flores, 19, in Kyle, Texas, said he averages about seven requests for 'Edgar' haircuts a day from young Mexican-American men in Central Texas.
'There’s not a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t do an ‘Edgar haircut’, he told NBC News.
