My husband and I were reading the paper this morning with its discussion about the new fashionistas and he was asking if I knew how "ista" came into the language. We now have fashionistas, Starbucks seems to have introduced "barista" and, I am sure, there are others.

For some reason I immediately thought it went back to the Cuban revolution of the 1950's. Of course I may think this because the revolution overthrew Batista.

Can anyone shed any light on this?