The hashtags #BoycottGoya and #GoyaAway is trending after the CEO of Goya Foods praised Trump at the White House and said we’re “blessed to have a leader” like Trump.
What We Know:
- Since Thursday night, twitter users started demanding a boycott against the popular company Goya Foods after its CEO Robert Unanue praised Donald Trump following the signing of an executive order establishing the White House Hispanic Prosperity Initiative.
- “We’re all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump, who is a builder,” Unanue said. “We have an incredible builder, and we pray. We pray for our leadership, our president.”
- Immediately after this speech, the hashtags #BoycottGoya and #GoyaAway started trending on twitter.
- “We learned to bake bread in this pandemic, we can learn to make our own adobo con pimienta. Bye,” Lin-Manuel Miranda, writer and star of the Broadway blockbuster “Hamilton,” tweeted.
We learned to bake bread in this pandemic, we can learn to make our own adobo con pimienta. Bye. https://t.co/qKHNYfkqCq
— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) July 10, 2020
- Goya, the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the U.S., was founded in 1936 by Don Prudencio Unanue and his wife Carolina, both from Spain. Their website says their story is as much about the importance of family as it is about achieving the American dream.
- The majority of Goya’s consumers are LatinX or minorities, so the praise from Goya’s CEO left many fans of the company baffled and outraged. To say that President Trump is unpopular in the polls amongst Hispanics would be an understatement.
- Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose family is Puerto Rican, tweeted about searching for alternatives to a signature Goya seasoning when the video surfaced online.
Oh look, it’s the sound of me Googling “how to make your own Adobo” https://t.co/YOScAcyAnC
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 10, 2020
- Many wondered if it was a publicity stunt. How could a company founded by immigrants praise a president that is preparing a new lawsuit to kill the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a U.S. immigration policy that gave legal status to undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children?
- Then there is the “building” that CEO Unanue mentioned, and many wondered if the wall he was referring to is the same wall that Trump wanted to build to keep people from crossing the Mexican-American border. Considering that Goya claims to care about the importance of family, why would their CEO praise a president that was separating children from their families at the borders resulting in numerous deaths and children being lost from their parents forever?
- Lastly, many Hispanics will never forget the images of Trump throwing paper towels to hurricane survivors in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria or the insufficient U.S. response and how he told the residents that Hurricane Maria was not a “real catastrophe” when compared to Hurricane Katrina’s death toll, and even mentioned that Puerto Rico’s recovery was adversely impacting the U.S. budget.
- However, even after all of the backlash on social media, Unanue stood by his words in the Rose Garden during an appearance today on “Fox & Friends.”
- “You’re allowed to talk good or talk praise to one president but you’re not — when I was called to be part of this commission to aid in economic and educational prosperity and you make a positive comment, all the sudden that’s not acceptable,” Unanue told Fox News.
- Many social media accounts are sharing alternatives to Goya products and their own home recipes under the hashtags #goyaalternatives, #boycottgoya and #goyaaway. It’s too soon to say whether Goya’s Trump praising will have any effects on their gross revenue.
Unanue said he would not apologize for his remarks and that he will not refuse future invitations from the president.
