Students are hot under the collar over what they see as a cold misrepresentation of Latinas.
Tecate advertisements placed on billboards throughout Albuquerque feature a slanted Tecate bottle with the words, "Finally, a cold Latina," written across them. The advertisements will be coming down within the next 48 hours, according to a customer service representative from Labatt, U.S.A, the company that imports the beer. The representative would not disclose whether the efforts of students from Robert F. Kennedy charter school had any affect on that decision.
"It (beer) is in a lot of beer ads, but I've never seen it targeting a specific race - like the Hispanic race," said Lauren Hermosillo, a student at RFK.
Students from RFK organized a call-in campaign and set up a table at the Duck Pond on Wednesday to protest the billboard advertisements.
About two weeks ago, Vicente Griego, senior programs adviser for El Centro de la Raza, said a group of students upset about the advertisement walked into his office. He said he challenged them to come up with a way to address the issue.
"One statement takes a lifetime to reverse," Griego said. "The shout out has got to go to RFK."
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Initially, Griego said he put the issue off to the side, but RFK took the time to get together with different organizations to get the community involved.
The students, after having seen the advertisement on the way to RFK, began to analyze the advertisement, looking at the ways it portrayed women in the Hispanic community.
The advertisement was placed on a Clear Channel billboard, and Rhonda Stanfield, RFK instructor, said she took the students out to measure the distance of the billboard in relation to school grounds. She said the advertisement was less than 500 feet away from the school, when alcohol ads are not supposed to come within 1,000 feet from targeting minors.
A customer service representative from Labatt would not comment on the distance of the advertisement to the school.
"They're just using women as objects," said Carlos Perez, freshman at RFK. "It's talking about Latinos, that when you drink, that you can have beer and women."
The students began creating posters, making presentations and distributing petitions about three weeks ago. They said they are not content that the advertisements are being taken down only in Albuquerque.
"They should do it nationwide," Ortega said.
The students said the agency might be afraid of losing money, and were unsure if their message was understood during the call-in campaign.
"They heard how we felt, but not really the concept we were getting out," Ortega said.
Hermosillo said when she talked to one of the representatives she had to explain what a Latina was.
Griego said having the students at UNM on Wednesday was a good chance for everyone to see that the advertisement could be offensive. He said an appropriate action for Tecate would be to place positive advertisements about the Hispanic community.
