New face of immigration?

By Juan Carlos Pérez-Duthie
Special to El Sentinel-
PalmBeachPost

Miami company creates 'Gringo Mask' to start dialogue,
not to offend

Is it Halloween already?
No, not yet, although for many Hispanic immigrants
things seem quite scary in Arizona and for some in
the Latino community, the state's governor, Republican
Jan Brewer, has assumed the role of big bad witch.

The reason: On April 23, Brewer signed into law a controversial
measure, SB 1070, which allows the police to detain anyone
whose immigration status may be suspect.
And playing into this, of course, is the person's appearance.

So, you don't look the way you should in Brewer's
and the police's eyes? No problem!
Because here's the solution, free of charge and
readily available to anyone: the Gringo Mask!

Whether you are a man or a woman, now you can
boast of a perfectly acceptable image for Arizona --
you know, light skin, blond hair, blue eyes --
without having to resort to expensive bleaching
creams like Sammy Sosa or Michael Jackson did,
or cumbersome Joan Rivers-type plastic surgery.

And for this you may thank the leaders and the
creative team of Zubi Advertising, one of the
leading Hispanic advertising agencies in the nation,
with headquarters in Miami.

"When we first heard of the law in Arizona and
the effects it could have in terms of racial profiling,
we discussed at the agency what we could do about
it, since we have access to media,"
says Michelle Zubizarreta, the agency's chief
administrative officer and co-owner along with
her brother Joe.
"How can we address the issue, but do so in a
creative way while at the same time delivering
a message?"

Ergo, the mask.

"What caught our attention was the absurdity of this law,
and the notion that we all must look a certain way,"
continues the Cuban-American executive.
"Once we talked about it, my creative team came back
with the idea of the mask and the website [which went
live on April 30. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are
also being used to spread the word].
Basically, this is all a satire of what is happening
in Arizona."

To take part in this satire, all you have to do is go
to www.gringomask.com, choose the mask that
best applies to you, download free, print it, cut it,
put an elastic band around it and ... bingo!
New face, new immigration status!

"The spirit in which we conceived Gringo Mask,"
clarifies Zubizarreta, "was not to offend anyone.
We wanted to start a dialogue."

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This is typical of the cra# that is printed in my local newsless paper,The Palm Beach Post or as it is more commonly refered to as
The Palm Beach Compost.
If you would like you can go to the original post and
read some of the comments to this article, they are
running about 10 to 1 bashing this advertising company.
Thereis also a "poll" availible on the page for your
opinion of the MASK.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/new-face-of-immigration-miami-company-creates-gringo-707135.html
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