Tired Before It Started: UStired2
A campaign calling itself “UStired2” was announced on November 17 through a Latino Rebels tweet. While they were the first to post the #USTired2 hashtag on November 17, other unreputable organizations joined into the promotional aspect of the campaign. Fox News subsidiary, Fox News Latino, published the first news story on UStired2 on November 19.
Spearheaded by Roberto Lovato and Julio Varela of the marketing group Latino Rebels, UStired2 effectively co-opts the cause of Ayotzinapa into one centered on the Latino identity. For instance, in the November 19 interview with Fox News Latino, Lovato claims “This is not just being limited to Latinos but it’s being led by Latinos and particularly Mexican-Americans.” Many organizations that have been working on Ayotzinapa already disagree. And despite Lovato’s claims, neither he nor Varela are actually Mexican or Mexican-American.
The connection with Latino Rebels is troubling due to its long-standing association with Charles P. Garcia, one of the co-founders and likely benefactor of the Latino Rebels Foundation. In a 2013 ABC-Univision profile of Julio Varela and the Latino Rebels, Garcia states that his political ideology was “formed at the U.S. Air Force Academy in the mid-West” and “in the jungles of Central America teaching counter guerilla warfare to militaries trying to shake off communist insurgencies in the 1980s.” In other words, aside from being a Republican donor (contributing at least $100,000 to George W. Bush in 2004), Garcia also proudly flaunts the fact he helped kill actual rebels during the Central American wars of the ‘80s.
It is unsurprising that marketing and counter-insurgency experts would engage in business together. Consider that Varela is part of a 100,000 member organization of professional marketers and PR reps named Latism, which is closely aligned with Fox News Latino and others. Given the use of the #Latism hashtag, we feel that the UStired2 campaign involves inauthentic leadership seeking self-promotion, legitimacy and prestige through association with the Justice for Ayotzinapa cause and broader Mexican protest movements. In short, the links between marketers and activists jeopardizes the links between Mexican activists on both sides of the border.
Although claiming to be a “new kind of Mexican solidarity movement,” the astroturf #USTired2 campaign is nothing but the latest attempt at the very old practice of exploiting the Mexican community.
Read: What Does #Latism Really Stand For? | Latino: the Manufactured Super Consumer
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