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 Business News | February 2007 
Peso Wars at the Pizza Counter
 Philip Sherwell & Jacqui Goddard - Sunday Telegraph
| | The display says ‘Bienvenido Paisano’ or ‘Welcome Countrymen’. But anyone who pays for pizza with pesos gets change in dollars and cents. |
To the founder of the Pizza Patron empire spread across the south-west of the United States, allowing customers to pay with Mexican pesos instead of dollars seemed sound business sense.
The company, whose boxes bear the slogan Mas pizza Menos Dinero (More Pizza Less Money) - was already popular with the region's large Hispanic population, and Antonio Swad knew that many of his customers returned from trips south of the border with Mexican currency.
But to some Americans, the "Pizzas for Pesos" promotion is a slight to Uncle Sam, an insult to the greenback, and further evidence that the country's identity is being overwhelmed by immigrants from Latin America.
Since it started the offer, the chain has received nearly 5,000 emails from the public, mostly complaints, boycott announcements and death threats.
"This is the United States of America, not the United States of Mexico," one of the tamer emails snorted.
"Quit catering to the damn illegal Mexicans," demanded another.
Mr Swad, who was born in Ohio and is of Italian-Lebanese descent, is amazed by the controversy.
"I never thought that people would build a bridge between our promotion and the topic of immigration in the US," he said.
"For people to get so hateful and express their outrage at a pizza company is misdirected. Really their outrage is at their government that, to their minds, has allowed immigration to become out of control."
Hundreds of stores along the US-Mexico divide, including Wal-Mart and the H-E-B supermarket chain, already take pesos. Some shops in northern New York state and Minnesota, close to America's border with Canada, have long accepted Canadian dollars.
The difference with Pizza Patron, which has 59 stores in Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and California, is that many of the outlets are a long way from the border. The branch in Dallas is more than 400 miles away, although the city still has a large Spanish-speaking population.
At the Pizza Patron in the north-west of the city, Carlos Moreno said he thought the promotion was an excellent idea.
He works locally as a building contractor and disc jockey but often ends up with spare pesos after trips to his native Mexico.
"Business is business," he said. "In Mexico, we accept dollars, euros, pesos, so what's the big deal? I think it's just a matter of pride."
Brenda Dinares, who serves behind the counter, said customers chose to pay in pesos every day. "I've heard about the fuss, but nobody's complained to me," said the young Mexican-born woman. "People seem to think it's a good idea."
An estimated 44 million (about 15 per cent) of America's population are Hispanic.
The Hispanic population is growing faster than any other demographic and is projected to make up a fifth of the population by 2030, and one quarter by 2050, making the immigration debate one of the most sensitive and polarising issues in America.
In his State of the Union address last month, President George W Bush, whose liberal stance on immigration puts him at odds with the majority of his fellow Republicans in Congress, renewed his calls for a temporary worker programme to be established to deal with the status of illegal immigrants.
In New Mexico, whose governor, Bill Richardson, is hoping to become the country's first Hispanic president, 43 per cent of the state's population share his ethnic roots.
More than 35 per cent of Texans and Californians are Hispanic. The demographic transformation of the south-west is causing friction in some communities where Spanish speakers now outnumber English-speaking locals. In Pahrump, Nevada, the city council passed a controversial English-only ordnance late last year.
There has been particular controversy over the growing number of "bilingual schools" where, -critics claim, Spanish-speaking pupils do not learn English.
Mr Swad insists that his store managers should be bilingual, in recognition of the fact that 60 per cent of their customers are Mexican, or Mexican-American.
As part of the Pizza for Pesos promotion, in-store displays feature the flag of Mexico and the message Bienvenido Paisano - Welcome Countrymen. Change is only given in dollars and cents, however. Steven Camarata, director of research at Washington's Centre for Immigration Studies, said: "The Pizza for Pesos deal is, on its face, a trivial thing, but symbolically it's important."
"To a lot of people, it's another example of the unwillingness of immigrants to assimilate and an unwillingness by the US to require assimilation."
Mr Swad says his promotion was only ever about selling more pizza.Pesos now account for up to 15 per cent of Pizza Patron's revenue, he reports - and since launching the programme, profits have risen 12 per cent. |
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