When your regular barista has better eyebrows than you … and you just ask him why
“Cortado with nonfat milk,“ he said, while putting the small little cup next to my laptop.

“Thank you,” I replied, instantly ignoring my coffee and my work stuff, and laying my eyes in his perfectly drawn eyebrows. Wondering how I never noticed them as I’m always sitting down in Trident Booksellers and Cafe bar, I couldn’t not say, “I like your eyebrows.”
“Thank you,” he said giggling, “I made them myself.”
“I’m a make-up artist,” he added.
I could tell, especially coming from a girl that constantly battles with putting eyeliner on. My next reaction was asking him if he has his own business. “Sadly, no, but I’m saving to go to make-up school,” he added.
The next two hours I tried to satisfy my curiosity about who the guy right in front of me. His name is Kevin Hernández, a 22-year-old barista pursuing a career in beauty as an immigrant.
Hernández was born in San Miguel, a city in Central American country El Salvador. He grew up with three younger brothers, Kevin, Kirmer, and Diego, and with his parents Juan Hernández and “Reina” Hernández, a nickname his boys put her that means “queen,” although, her name is Roxana Hernández. When Hernández attended kindergarten in San Miguel, around 2000, his dad decided to move to the U.S. as they struggled with debts.
“Actually, my dad’s first job was here in Trident, 19 years ago,” said Hernández. The job only lasted a few months before he moved to Baltimore to work for in the warehouse for Rider Pharmacy’s. Juan Hernández personally brought Hernández, and his recently-born-on-2014 little brother Dael, a few years ago to meet the place.
Hernández stayed with his mom and brothers in San Miguel and attended public school for his elementary and middle school, while his dad worked in the U.S. His dad got his visa after an earthquake in El Salvador, in 2001. The quake also opened the doors for other Salvadorans to work abroad and provide for their family. However, Juan Hernández stopped working after being diagnosed with lung cancer in 2006. His wife, Reina, joined him in Baltimore to take care of him. She worked in hotels, cleaning.
“I had to take care of my brothers when my mom left,” Hernández said. They were all left with their grandparents from the mom’s side, who Hernández describes a “completely strict people.” He personally remembers how his mom struggled when she was young. “My mom was 15 when she no longer wanted to attend school, but my grandparents didn’t allow it,’’ Hernández said, “so she moved with my aunt, her sister, and that’s when she met my dad and had me at 17.”
At 11, Hernández moved to the U.S. with his brothers, age when he first found out his dad used to have cancer and got successfully treated. “We were little and didn’t understand his sickness until then,” he said.
Hernández remembers he got along pretty well with his brothers but always felt slightly different. “They were into sports and video games, and I was entertained with arts or music,” he said, since her mom encouraged his artistic talent by drawing TV cartoon characters and hanging drawings in his room.
He started high school in Aberdeen, Maryland, where he took art and painting classes and participated in drama and dance clubs. “I wanted to try everything to find out what I wanted to do with my life,” Hernández said.
The major obstacle was language, as neither he nor his brothers spoke any English. “My mom had to stop working to help up with school homework,” he said, “she didn’t have the best English but she talked more than us.” Hernández now laughs when he mentions that all his grades were Ds, as he only did homework but never engaged in class. Luckily, it all changed in 7th grade, where he felt more confident in speaking English.
In his freshman year at Aberdeen, he discovered he was into make-up. “I thought of it as interesting, artistic, modern, fun,” he said. At the same time, he confessed he was mad at himself because getting into arts or beauty seemed like a poorly-paid profession. “My brother was into science and math, and I couldn’t think of anything else than art,” Hernández said.
The turning point in his life came in 2012. Hernández’s discovered he was into guys. He was 15 when he told his parents he was gay, the only people that knew were two high school friends. “They used to bully me in El Salvador because I did girly stuff, didn’t play sports and just hung out with girls and did their hair,” he said, “but I used to say that I liked girls because I was supposed to.”
As Hernández reached puberty, he began asking himself if he really liked girls or boys. He first came out as bisexual. “You know what they say, bi now, gay later,” he said between laughs.
In 2012, he also met his first boyfriend, a guy named Desmond, on a dating site called Meetme.com. His parents, nervous at first because of the unknown world Hernández was getting into, were supportive. “The first time I told them was with a letter,” he said, “but when I spoke with them, they told me they already knew.” His brothers were supportive too. Hernández was, and still is, very thankful his sexuality “was never a subject to joke about at home.”
When finishing freshman year, his parents proposed the family to move to Boston. His father had been offered a job at the Cisco headquarters in Boston. “They would only move if my brothers and I agree,” he said, “I didn’t want to move, I was happy with Desmond and my LGBTQ friends club, but I wanted to make my parents happy.”
Hernández broke up with Desmond and move with his family to Boston, where he experienced depression for the first time. “I went to school, came back and cried in my room,” he said. “All my friends and my life were in Baltimore.” That’s how 16-year-old Hernández decided to try dating app Grindr, moment he described as his “most rebellious age.”
“I used to sneak out of my house to meet people I didn’t know,” he said. It all stopped when his mom found out and took away his cellphone. When he realized his parents were getting nervous about his behavior, he just stopped and tried to make the most out of his new life in Boston, so he continued with art and dancing at high school.
“Acne appeared at Boston too,” Hernández said. “That’s how I started buying concealers”. Hernandez’s mom was into hair and nails, and he complemented it all with make-up. After graduating high school, Hernández decided to wait and save money for make-up school. He started working as a waiter in Italian restaurant Strega Waterfront.
When he turned 20, Hernández met “the love of his life” on Grindr. “It happened when my family and I moved from Revere to Weymouth,” he said, “Christopher lived there.”
Christopher Gleba, a 24-year-old Starbucks manager, is currently married to Hernández after dating him for a year and a half and realizing they couldn’t stay away from each other.
“I asked him to marry me on February 7, our first-year anniversary,” Hernández said. They officially said “I do” on May 18, 2018, and moved together in Weymouth, very close to both families. “Chris is very shy with few friends, just like me, so it’s just Chris and I,” he said.
Although they “can barely afford to pay rent,” they are both willing to enjoy life. Hernández left Strega Waterfront because he wasn’t feeling in a nice atmosphere. “They were all older than me and I had too much pressure,” he said, a thing that doesn’t happen at Trident, where most of the staff are in their late 20s. “I like Trident. Money is not the best, but I feel comfortable and happy,” Hernández said.
His next move is succeeding in make-up, but first, attend to school. “I have heard great things about Empire [Beauty School in Boston], but I want to keep looking,” he said, “I’m currently learning all on YouTube.”
When he’s not at Trident, he practices looks on his mom or some girlfriends. “I even practiced with Chris once,” he said laughing. Christ pushed him to create an Instagram portfolio with his best make-up, where he hopes to get some clients, and will soon print business cards.
“Are you done with your cortado?” he asked at the end of our conversation. “I may need another one,” I replied, typing down the title of the story about how Hernandez’s eyebrows got me here in the first place.



