Latin Pride
When Justo Garcia noticed T-shirts with palm trees, coconuts, and flags that claimed to represent his Dominican culture, he thought he could do better.
The West Roxbury designer wanted to celebrate his Dominican American heritage and empower other Latinos to do the same. So he began designing tees with positive, witty messages that reflected the diversity of the Latin and Caribbean diaspora as well as the urban culture he and his friends identity with.
There's one that reads "Got Mangu ?" referring to the green plantain dish popular in the Dominican Republic. Another says "Mi Orgullo ," which means "My Pride," and features a Puerto Rican flag flanked by the names of various towns there. Another shirt states "I AM LATIN AMERICA," with a map of the countries it represents.
With help from childhood friend Manny Montilla , Garcia started peddling his T-shirts out of the trunk of his 1985 Plymouth Voyager on the streets of Jamaica Plain and at Dominican and Puerto Rican festivals in Boston. He eventually branched out to other mostly Hispanic neighborhoods in the Bronx and Washington Heights in New York.
And what began with a simple design paying homage to the Dominican Republic seven years ago has grown into a spirited and budding fashion business called DeezShirts . Their mantra: "It's who you are."
The shirts aren't so much about assimilation or adapting to the United States as they are about cultural expression.
"You would only see the basic things that represented our culture [in other shirts]," says Garcia, a junior architect in Boston. "We wanted to approach this in a way that people would want to wear the shirts more than just to a festival."
Garcia, who was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to the Bay State at age 12, designs the shirts from his studio in Somerville. Montilla works on the business side of the company from his home in the Bronx, where he was born to Dominican parents.
"We like to look at them [the shirts] as more like tattoos," Montilla says. "Our love of culture is what makes these shirts what they are. Our shirts allow us to share our experiences and show kids that there is more out there than what you see on TV. They are very educating and empowering."
The lifelong friends, who are distant relatives on their mothers' side, research the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to find some cultural touchstone that people might connect with, such as a popular food, a catch phrase, or neighborhood. They also find inspiration for the designs from their friends, who represent many ethnicities and races from the subtropics.
"Biculturalism is reflected in every single design we have," Montilla says. "Luckily, we have friends that run the gamut."
And the shirts mirror those diverse relationships. One shirt features the Cuban national shield. Another showcases the Haitian flag with a map of the country. While Cape Verde is not part of Latin America, Montilla and Garcia have created shirts about the cluster of islands off the coast of West Africa because Cape Verdeans tend to look like other Latinos and African-Americans and have much in common with them.
Garcia and Montilla are working on getting their shirts in to boutiques and stores in mostly Hispanic cities. For now, people can buy the shirts, which sell for about $21, online at deezshirts.com or at one of the Dominican or Puerto Rican parades/festivals this summer in Boston or New York, where the guys will be selling the tees themselves.
These days, they are hard at work on their spring line, which they plan to unveil in Miami during the city's popular Calle Ocho Festival , which features the longest conga line in the world in the heart of the city's Cuban exile community.
Garcia and Montilla believe their shirts might help build cultural bridges.
"We do carry messages that are strong enough to strike up a conversation between people who do not know each other such as 'what is mangu , something that Dominicans eat,' " says Garcia. "Our shirts hit home."
JOHNNY DIAZ 
