They like cheap labor, but not their humor
Apparently some Americans are not quite ready for rasquachismo, the Mexican practice of folk kitsch appropriation (I blogged a while back about it here). When NaCo, my favorite Mexican design outfit (I blogged about them here) offered T-Shirts at Macy’s proclaiming “Brown is the new white,” vociferous and scared anti-immigration activists pressured the retail giant to pull the T. Too bad. People need to take their cultural status less seriously. After all, it is the irony of all ironies that those of European descent who are so against Mexican immigration call themselves “nativatists.” I wonder how those from the First Nations think about that? Still, the fact that NaCo is in Macy’s means the battle is being lost. I recall that Gabriel García Márquez once said that Latin American didn’t need to invade the US with armies. It would take over with telenovelas (soap operas). The sooner the better!
Advertising Age – Hispanic Marketing – Kitsch Is Key to Apparel Maker’s Branding Effort:
Macy’s, however, quickly found that not everyone is amused by NaCo’s sense of humor. Its T-shirt with the fashion-parody slogan “Brown is the new white” drew immediate fire from a conservative anti-immigration website, generating e-mails to Macy’s threatening a boycott and online rants about racism and immigrants trying to take over America (one poster pointed out a possible link between Macys’ red-star logo and communism). Fox News did a story, and Macy’s pulled the “Brown is the new white” shirt.
Technorati Tags: naco, rasquachismo
