Fernando Cuenca

37; vegan 15 years; hometown Bogotá, Colombia

 

When I was maybe 18, I started going to hardcore shows in my city. There I met a lot of people that I’m still friends with and a lot of people talked about the anti-bullfighting activism. Mostly because bullfighting is seen as a rich people thing. Punk rock culture is very against the oligarchy and things like that. The hardcore scene back in Columbia was very political in that sense because the country’s at war and there were many things going on. So you got exposed to things like displacement and anti-bullfighting. I ended up showing up at one of their protests one day.

 

The bullfighting is bad and there is no end in sight, other than the young people are really not into it, so at some point attendance is just going to go down.

It’s very dear to my heart because it’s how I got involved in all this, [and this] is how I live every day. When the season is on and the organizations down there are protesting, I still have friends and family down there so I promote through facebook. It’s still a big deal to me.

 

Photo by Luciano Cuenca