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Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Coyote

Last week I was working two jobs. I had my regular gig in the day and then I was filling in for my brother in law at his grocery store while he was away in El Salvador.

One of the biggest revenue sources at a Latin American grocery store is phone cards. Almost everyone that comes in to buy food also buys a $2 or $5 phone card to call home with.

There are about 30 different cards for sale at the store and they all sell fairly well with the exception of one… El Coyote, a card for calling Mexico… Nobody could figure out why… After taking a look at the card it took me approximately 2 seconds to solve the riddle.

Check it out:














Are you serious?! The guy is wearing a sombrero, he’s dirty, he’s hairy, he’s got the moustache, and he’s SMOKING A RED CHILE PEPPER?!

To top things off, in Spanish the word coyote means (in addition to the small wolf like animal) a person that smuggles illegal immigrants across the border!

I thought it encompassed just about every Mexican stereotype they could convey with one cartoon drawing, which is almost impressive in a way... but then a Mexican friend at my real job thought of two stereotypes they missed:

“They could have added gold teeth and a rooster…”

*note- when the guy from the phone card company came in to restock, all the poor selling cards were switched out thus ending the "Coyote Era" at the store.

7 comments:

Santiago said...

I have to say that is a crazy freaking card and guy. I sometimes buy some when my parents go to Mexico. It is cheaper for us.

cindylu said...

Ugh! How offensive. What Mexican puts his thumb up like that?

jennifer said...

could be worse. he could also be asleep against a cactus.

Joel said...

so to make that phone card perfect we need to make him aleep against a cactus, with a gold tooth poking out of his crooked smile, a rooster on his lap, and a bottle of tequilla in his other hand... i think they could pull it off.

HispanicPundit said...

Hahaha....sometimes you gotta wonder about the people who do marketing. Reminds me of the Chevy Nova...not the advertising they were looking for, I bet.

Anonymous said...

he would also need a pretty senorita standing by his side...and a donkey too.

Anonymous said...

he's smoking a chile!

bwahaha omg! ahahaha!

where's the snake?! they FORGOT THE SNAKE! ahahaa. omg

can u believe people get paid to come up with that kind of stuff. someone was paid to draw that!