Life of Che Guevara Early Years
part 1 of a three-part series

Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna was born to Ernesto Guevara Lynch and Celia de la Serna y Llosa, a middle-class family of Spanish-Irish descent, on June 14, 1928 in the city of Rosario, Argentina.

That Ernesto was born in Rosario instead of Misiones, where his parents lived, was sort of a fluke. Ernesto and Celia had started out for Buenos Aires several days earlier, but since Celia was not feeling well, they decided to stay in Rosario at 480 Entre Ríos Street. Several days after the unexpected birth in Rosario, Ernesto's parents returned with their newborn son to their mate plantation in Misiones, Port Caraguatay, near the borders of Brazil and Paraguay.

At the age of two, during a rather cool day with his parents at the San Isidro Nautical Club, Ernestito – as he was then called to differentiate him from his father - had his first asthma attack. For the next several years, Ernesto's parents moved to different places in Argentina searching for a climate that would attenuate the frequent asthma crises the small child suffered. This disease would continue to haunt him all his life, but never became a true obstacle to his endeavours.

The family first lived in Buenos Aires and then moved to Alta Gracia in the province of Cordoba. His asthma bouts, which worsened in 1931 after navigating with his parents along the Paraná River, became more frequent. Because of his asthma, Ernesto (or Teté as he was called by his nanny Carmen Arias) did not start school at the age most children do and was at first home schooled by his mother, even with the birth of