http://www.themonitor.com/SiteProces...Section=Valley

Ringtone creator: It’s only satire
May 15,2006
Chris Mahon
The Brownsville Herald

BROWNSVILLE — When Paul Saucido’s plane touched down in Los Angeles earlier this week, he had no idea the bizarre turn his vacation would take.

The comedian flew to California to surprise his mother for Mother’s Day. Midweek, he started getting calls about a ringtone he had created a year ago for barriomobile.com, a Web site that sells and markets ringtones and other multimedia products.

The ringtone was sold, along with other Barrio Mobile products mostly marketed to Hispanics, to Cingular Wireless LLC, which has since pulled the company’s products from its lineup.

Among them was Saucido’s “La Migra Alert,” in which he assumed the voice of a Southern-styled immigration officer saying, “Cálmate, cálmate, this is la migra … Put down the oranges and step away from the telephone-o.”

Cingular dropped it from its Web site after calls from a Hispanic activist group and The Brownsville Herald.

The ringtone became an unexpected flashpoint in the national immigration debate, spurring more than a hundred e-mails to the paper and discussions at national media outlets.

Saucido laid blame for the incident at Cingular’s feet, since top company officials were unaware the ringtone was being sold on its Web site.

“If they didn’t know what was going on, some of those people weren’t doing their jobs correctly,” he said.

In his view, the company should have hired a Hispanic marketing firm to target a young demographic. Three young Hispanics interviewed at Wireless Toyz at Sunrise Mall on Wednesday all laughed when they heard the ringtone.

Context is also an issue. People would have understood more if they knew his background, he said.

“Of course people are going to react differently if it’s on a KKK site,” he said referring to the Ku Klux Klan organization.

He was shocked by the reaction to the ringtone, which he says was a satirical take on immigration.

“Immigration always comes and goes as a hot button issue,” he said. “If you’re non-Latino, you don’t live with the thought of immigration in your head every day. You don’t have to go out of your way to say you’re an American citizen. To this day, I still have to say I’m a citizen.”

While Hispanic humor is typically safe, he says, Saucido holds nothing sacred, and this was but one example of his “edgy” humor.

“You say a chorizo joke, everyone laughs. You say a joke about la Virgen (de Guadalupe), you better get out the way.”

Tired of the chorizo jokes, Saucido drew inspiration from comedians Carlos Mencia and Dave Chappelle, and the Comedy Central show Reno 911, to push the boundaries of racy (and racial) humor.

“This is satirical commentary. I’m making fun of an immigration officer and how non-Latinos speak Spanish. It’s the oldest joke since the Cheech and Chong days,” he said.

Saucido wondered how the League of United Latin American Citizens, the group that called Cingular and its parent company AT&T Inc. to complain, would react to the ringtone “now that they know I’m raza.”

LULAC National Executive Director Brent Wilkes could not be reached for comment Friday but said earlier this week they found the ringer offensive.

However, Rev. Mike Seifert said he would still be offended at immigration jokes during the current political climate.

Seifert, a priest at San Felipe de Jesus Catholic Church in Cameron Park, initially called the ringtone “hateful,” though he seemed to temper his opinion somewhat when learning Saucido’s background.

“One thing I learned a long time ago is that you can’t be sarcastic in (print) media.”

Currently living in Austin, Saucido works as a Latino music consultant and on-air host at regional cable station ME (Music and Entertainment) Television.

Confirming the maxim that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” Saucido said he wasn’t bothered by the attention his creation received. “The entertainer in me loves getting my name out,” he said.

Looking back at the anti-immigrant furor that the Cingular move caused, Saucido took it in stride.

“Those with the anti-immigrant (crowd) are into that fever already and … there’s no changing their minds. I think it’s hilarious because they don’t know that I’m making fun of them with that character (a white immigration officer). If they’re going to tout freedom of speech, they can’t shut me down when they find out about my politics.”

As for Cingular, Saucido hopes they put more jokes back on their site. “They need to get their spine back.”