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 Editorials | Opinions | January 2007 
An Anti-Mexican Response to Smart Business Decision
 The Valley Morning Star
| | Pizza Patron founder Antonio Swad (right) and an employee checked supplies in a Dallas shop advertising its pesos policy. (LM Otero/Associated Press) |
Reasonable people can disagree on policy issues without vilifying one another. That is the basis of the civil discourse upon which a representative democracy relies.
It's a clear sign that civil discourse has broken down somewhat when a business receives death threats and hate mail for making the business decision of accepting a foreign currency. That's the situation faced by Pizza Patr'on, a Dallas-based pizza chain with 59 restaurants across the Southwest, including five in the Rio Grande Valley.
The company, which estimates that it does 60 percent of its business with Hispanic customers, began accepting pesos last week as part of an effort to sell more pizzas. An Associated Press story about this decision - which might prompt a "so what?" from Valley residents - was met elsewhere with an over-the-top response that might politely be described as anti-immigrant, but is, in fact, virulently anti-Mexican.
The Associated Press reported that e-mails to the chain included remarks such as, "Quit catering to the damn illegal Mexicans," making the astute observation that anyone with a few pesos at home must be an "illegal Mexican."
Pizza Patron spokesman Andy Gamm defended the promotion, "It doesn't make sense in Connecticut. And it doesn't make sense in North Dakota or in Maine. But it makes perfect sense here in Dallas, in Phoenix, in Denver - areas far from the border that have significant Hispanic populations."
Just like it makes sense that businesses near the Canadian border might accept currency from the other side. Or that businesses throughout Mexico routinely accept U.S. dollars. (Not to mention countless other businesses from Brownsville to San Diego that accepted pesos long before Pizza Patr'on got into the act.)
The yahoos sending death threats about pesos being spent here - besides giving Pizza Patr'on a tremendous amount of free publicity - undoubtedly also are among those blow a fuse about dollars being sent south of the Rio Grande. They apparently don't like any international commerce - at least when it is conducted with Mexico.
Common sense, like civility and tolerance, sure is in short supply these days. |
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