Oops: Chipotle Forgot to Include Latino Writers in Its Literary Cup Campaign
*Ooops? See, that’s part of the problem. When media reports on big box business on matters of culture, it’s an ooops. I normally wouldn’t care what Chipotle did, but this isn’t just an oversight. The fact that Latino writers were overlooked, that they weren’t even an afterthought, speaks loudly to the larger issue of cultural attitudes. VL
By Tina Nguyen, Mediaite
At first glance, you’d laugh at pretentious Chipotle being snobby again with their latest campaign, spearheaded by author Jonathan Safran Foer, to publish original works of literature on its cups and bags to entertain their customers whilst they dine upon burritos.
Luminaries like Toni Morrison and Michael Lewis participated, as well as academics like Steven Pinker and comedians like Sarah Silverman, Bill Hader, and Malcolm Gladwell. (Face it, Gladwell is a joke.) But a writer for the Orange County Weekly pointed out a more embarrassing fact: Chipotle, a restaurant that serves Mexican food, didn’t include any Latino writers in their campaign.
“Not Pulitzer Prize-winning Junot Diaz, who also won a James Beard award for one of the finest pieces of food writing I’ve ever read,” wrote Gustavo Arellano. “Not the doña of Chicano literature, Sandra Cisneros. Not best-selling author Luis Alberto Urrea. Not Tex-Mex loco Dagoberto Gilb. Not any other number of Latino authors who could easily contribute a story or two that would be appicable a Mexican-food chain. Judd Apatow made the list–but not one Latino.”
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[Photo courtesy of Chipotle]
