Thread: Experts say boycotts don't work,

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: Latino-focused businesses take heat
Experts say boycotts don't work, criticism eventually dies down

By Eunice Moscoso
Cox Washington Bureau
Published on: 03/18/07
Washington —- When Pizza Patron, a Dallas-based restaurant chain, decided to accept Mexican pesos, it created a promotional campaign featuring the Mexican flag and the slogan "Bienvenido Paisano," or "Welcome Countryman."

It also created an outcry.

Hosts of conservative talk radio shows and opponents of illegal immigration seized on the story, creating a buzz and major backlash.

The restaurant received hundreds of e-mails and calls a day accusing it of abetting illegal immigration and being anti-American. There were even death threats, said Andrew Gamm, the company's director of brand development.

"We took a lot of heat," he said. "The backlash and the intensity of the responses we got ... caught everyone here off-guard. Obviously, it really struck a nerve with a lot of people."

As Congress gears up to tackle a major immigration bill and towns across America are passing ordinances designed to curb illegal immigration, businesses are embracing immigrants —- legal and illegal —- as customers, and facing a backlash.

Experts say, however, that the protests will likely dissipate and have little impact on future profits or business practices.

Bank of America was thrust into the immigration debate last month after a newspaper article detailed a pilot program in the Los Angeles area to offer credit cards to people without Social Security numbers.

Groups pushing for a crackdown on illegal immigration demanded a boycott and started e-mail campaigns to lawmakers. Small protests occurred at Bank of America branches in Phoenix, Dumont, N.J., Rochester, N.H., and about a dozen other places.

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), a leading voice against illegal immigration in Congress, said the bank could be aiding terrorists with the credit card policy and that its new message should be: "Bank of America, it's everywhere terrorists want to be."

One group, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, set up a boycott Web site —- www.bankofamericaboycott.com —- and says it has collected about 25,600 signatures of people pledging to end relationships with the bank.

"They are knowingly aiding and abetting illegal aliens to enter and remain in the United States unlawfully, which we feel is a violation of existing federal law," said William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC.

The uproar over the credit cards prompted Bank of America's chief executive, Kenneth Lewis, to issue a defense on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, saying that the bank "does not deliberately market financial products and services to illegal immigrants from any country" and that the program is designed to help "customers build a credit history."

The bank's pilot program allows customers to use identification other than a Social Security card, including a Taxpayer Identification Number issued by the Internal Revenue Service or a "matricula consular" card issued by the Mexican Consulate. Another leading bank, Citigroup Inc., has been issuing credit cards to people without Social Security numbers since 2004.

In addition, many banks accept the "matricula consular" card as identification to open checking and savings accounts, a practice approved by the Treasury Department.

Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.), chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus, which is pushing for stronger enforcement against illegal immigration, said that Bank of America and other financial institutions are violating the intent of identification laws designed to stop racketeering and money laundering by drug dealers and terrorists.

"If you and I as U.S. citizens are required to show a viable I.D., why the heck would foreign nationals be exempt to that rule?" he asked.

In addition, Bilbray said the "matricula consular" card is not a reliable document. "This would be comparable to allowing a Sam's card to be used to get on an airplane," he said.

Bilbray is supporting legislation authored by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) that would stop banks from accepting "matricula consular" cards and require them to accept an American or foreign passport, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services photo I.D. card, or a Social Security card in conjunction with a government-issued identification card.

Despite the outcry, experts say that the forces of capitalism will eventually trump the backlash against businesses catering to illegal immigrants.

Jim H. Johnson, director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said American companies will continue to market to Latinos, both legal and illegal, because they represent a growing population of buyers.

"Private sector companies have recognized what a very large market the Hispanic population constitutes in America and the huge consumer spending power that they have," he said.

In 2005, the nation's estimated 6.6 million illegal immigrant families had an average yearly income of $29,500, which gave them nearly $200 billion in purchasing power, according to Jeffrey Passel, a demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.

Jorge Reina Schement, a professor of communications at Penn State University, said that similar boycotts appeared in the 1980s when businesses in Los Angeles started posting billboards in Spanish.

"This backlash for business is a recurring theme ... all sorts of boycotts are declared and they go nowhere" because the number of protesters is insignificant compared to the large number of Hispanic consumers, he said.

At Pizza Patron, which has 63 stores in Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada and Colorado, the backlash has already subsided, according to company officials. Now the restaurant receives about 20 e-mails a day complaining about the peso promotion.

Gamm said that accepting pesos was a sound business decision because many Mexican customers travel back and forth on business or to visit family and have leftover pesos in their pockets.

"We sell a traditional pizza product which isn't much different from Domino's or Pizza Hut or Papa John's, our point of difference is that we are working to become the pizza of choice for Hispanic consumers," Gamm said. "In order to have the loyalty of that customer, we have to give it."

The peso promotion was recently extended for two months, and the chain is considering making it permanent.








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Where else were they going to Spend the pesos? Really, think about it. It was like getting free Pizza. Those Pesos are worthless, unless you are over the border, exchanging them for nothing at the bank or spending them at Patrons. They act like they have a target market. Ha! They have a captive market.

Pesos are like those gold game tokens. They are worthless unless you are exchanging them for crap at a particular store.

Patrons should probably get out of the money exchange business. Wonder how much was counterfeit. Also, I wonder if there are regulations for money-exchange.

Dixie

Jim H. Johnson, director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said American companies will continue to market to Latinos, both legal and illegal, because they represent a growing population of buyers.

"Private sector companies have recognized what a very large market the Hispanic population constitutes in America and the huge consumer spending power that they have," he said.

Just wait until no one has any money to buy pizza because all of money is going to be spent on welfare for all the new families the President and Congress bring in to live here. Then, who will be complaining!

Ok, so here's a business plan: let someone market a 'hearty German-style pizza' to the German market. Point out that your goal is to become the pizza most sought after by Germans and German-Americans. State your desire to serve that community and end the sentence with a period right there. Wouldn't that be weird?

Yet, it would make economic sense if we are talking about numbers and purchasing power. German-Americans are one of our largest ethnic groups in America.

If I wanted to go after Hispanic spending power, there are more inclusive, less offensive ways to do that. To me, Pizza Patron's approach smacks more of La Raza thinking than just commerce.

When I saw them set up shop, it was in a community long known for its Black middle class, and with a sizeable population of whites as well. Did they not want us to order from them, even if we happened to have a few pesos left over from Mazatlan?

I do not recall anyone launching an organized boycott against Pizza Patron, therefore I find it ironic they are using that as an example of a failed boycott.

W

That's right, and a slip like that might mean they are feeling the heat. As Brigham Young used to say, only hit pigeons flutter.

In 2005, the nation's estimated 6.6 million illegal immigrant families had an average yearly income of $29,500

What the hell is wrong with this country? Without paying any taxes, that's a good living. A better living than many citizens I know.

You would think that they could come up with more credible "experts" than a communications professor and the head of a goofy little organization aimed at helping out "distressed" communities. So what we have is an activist and the university equivalent of a community college basket weaving instructor. Color me impressed!

We can't boycott something that we would never eat in the first place - greazy, low quality pizza. I'll bet you have to guzzle at least 3 miller lites to wash the aftertaste off.

Crocket said:

So what we have is an activist and the university equivalent of a community college basket weaving instructor. Color me impressed

That's great!