Goya’s responsibility

The real national symbol of America isn’t baseball, hot dogs, or a slice of apple pie. It is the boycott. My countrymen don’t get any more “American” — any more plugged into the true ethos of the land of the free and home of the brave — than when they’re trying to put someone else in the poor house because of an opinion, policy or endorsement they disagree with.

Despite what the racists say, Latinos have always excelled at being Americans. The nation’s largest minority knows the history, culture, food and purpose of this magnificent country. And the tribe — all 59 million of us — contributes to all of those things every single day. We go along to get along, and we’re masters of assimilation. Even the small fraction who only speak Spanish — surveys typically put the figure at about 15% —- are destined to lose the language war in the long run to their children who speak English.

That being the case, it’s an act of patriotism that Latinos now want to once again try their hands at the American pastime: boycotts.

This time, the target is Goya Foods, the nation’s largest Hispanic-owned food company. We got here because CEO Robert Unanue -- the grandson of Spanish immigrants who founded the company — was tone-deaf enough to suck up to President Donald Trump at a ceremony last week at the White House. Unanue -- who has a net worth of about $1.1 billion and owes much of his good fortune to the fact that Goya’s products are consumed by Mexicans in the United States — foolishly betrayed his customer base. He actually praised someone whose own favorite pastime is insulting Mexicans.

“We are truly blessed, at the same time, to have a leader like President Trump who is a builder,” Mr. Unanue said.

Does Goya sell breakfast items? Because those 19 words were syrupy enough to pour on pancakes.

What followed was condemnation by a firing squad of prominent Latinos — from playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda and Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez, D-N.Y., to former 2020 presidential candidate Julian Castro and television commentator Ana Navarro-Cardenas. All of them, good Americans. Then came the boycott.

By the way, the fact that boycotts are so quintessentially American is ironic given that the term boycott dates back to an Englishman who was working as a land agent in County Mayo, Ireland. In 1880, the tenants of an absentee landlord — threatened with eviction by a British Captain named Charles Boycott — devised a non-violent but effective way of fighting back by applying pressure and treating the land agent as a social pariah. They squeezed him good. The poor guy couldn’t even get his mail delivered.

In the classic television show “Leave it to Beaver,” they called this sort of icy treatment “giving someone the business.”

But, in this case, the tactic works by not giving an individual or company much business at all.

Of course, opponents of boycotts like to claim the pressure tactic never works. I’ve written that very thing in the past, and I was wrong. A lot of boycotts have failed, but some have succeeded.

The most famous example is the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was led by a charismatic young minister from Atlanta who would one day share his “dream” in front of the Lincoln Memorial. African Americans decided that they’d rather walk for justice than sit in the back of a bus. It wasn’t long before the bus company felt the pinch and buckled. Patriots 1, Segregation 0.

All boycotts have opponents. And, not surprisingly, with the Goya boycott, they include conservative MAGA supporters who have taken to Twitter to condemn the whole affair as the latest example of cancel culture.

In a tweet, conservative actor James Woods called the boycotters “thugs” who were practicing “liberal terrorism.” Commentator Meghan McCain tweeted that the boycott was “weird and callous” since Goya employs thousands of workers and donates food to the needy.

Conservatives who oppose boycotts are knuckleheads who lack self-awareness. During the Trump presidency — and going all the way back to the 1990s — Republicans and right-wingers have used boycotts to try to “cancel” one liberal-leaning company or corporations after another. The favorite targets of conservatives have included Disney, Netflix, Starbucks, Nike, CNN and other entities that refuse to adhere to their rigid view of the world regarding race, politics, immigration or LGBTQ rights.

How people feel about boycotts has everything to do with what and who is being boycotted. Sadly, hypocrisy is also the American way.