Cultural appropriation has become a phenomenon with which design plagiarism is identified.
Cultural appropriation is very common in the fashion industry.
Around the world, fashion designers are urged to take into account elements taken from other cultures.
After the digitization of the world thanks to technology, social networks have become one of the most used channels by people around the world, exposing some news that perhaps before was very difficult to make known. This is the case of a news that emerged in the United Kingdom, where a British brand sued a Mexican entrepreneur for using the word “taquería” in her food business, going viral on social networks.
When we talk about taquerias it is normal to talk about Mexico. According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE)the word taqueria is defined as “Establishment where Mexican tacos are sold.”
In this sense, the importance of tacos for Mexicans is reflected as an important element of the country’s economy, since there are 46 thousand 983 registered taquerias, of which two thousand 862 are in Mexico City, three thousand 088 in Jalisco and 970 in Nuevo León, the three most important cities in the Republic, according to data from the National Statistical Directory of Economic Units of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography.
Other data from Mexicodetails that for 28.3 percent of Mexicans, this dish is their favorite, so five out of 10 consume it at least once a week.
cultural appropriation
Mexican Michelle Salazar de la Rocha and her partner Sam Napier are being sued by a British franchise for using the word “taquería” in his business “Taquería Sonora”, for which it has gone viral on social networks.
According to media reports eater londonthe owners of Taquería Sonora received a cease and desist on the use of the word in its name and identity, as the British franchise “Worldwide Taqueria,” which operates sites in Notting Hill and Exmouth Market, alleges that Sonora’s use of the term constitutes “trademark infringement.”
Likewise, eater london details that earlier this month, lawyers on behalf of Taqueria delivered a 20-page letter to the Sonora owners, where you can see the technical aspects of the alleged infringement of the Taquería trademark, in addition to all the cases of the alleged infringement.
“It’s so stupid,” Salazar told Eater London.
Faced with this news, social networks have not stopped with the comments of offended Mexicans who describe the issue as cultural appropriation, since the taco dish and the word taquería is Mexican.
“And the response from Mexicans has been outrage. Because it’s ridiculous. There’s no way to put it… and I guess you also remember the fact that everyone thinks there’s no good Mexican food in the UK. But if you can’t even call your taco place a taqueria, where do you start? It is another barrier”, adds Salazar to an interview conducted by the English medium.
“As with all UK trade mark registrations, the provisions of the Trade Marks Act give the owner the exclusive right in the trade mark, and those rights are infringed when the mark is used in the UK by another company without the owner’s consent. As such, use of TAQUERIA by Sonora Taqueria Ltd without the consent of Worldwide Taqueria Ltd constitutes trademark infringement,” Ismael Muñoz, operations manager for Worldwide Taqueria said in response to a request for comment from Eater London.
It is worth mentioning that according to the Cambridge Dictionarycultural appropriation is “the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture”.
Well, if divine justice existed, the restaurants called Taquería would be closed on a matter of cultural and linguistic appropriation. And not only would Taquería Sonora win, the other restaurant would look ridiculous. https://t.co/1tGdEJ4BeB
— (っ◔◡◔)っ ★ (@ishiba) September 15, 2022
Hey, you have to support taquería Sonora, this is beyond ridiculous, it’s outrageous 😡 https://t.co/uTNx67Wv3H
– @lalumbreras (@lalumbreras) September 16, 2022
How do you see that some English are owners of the word #taqueria And they are suing a Mexican woman who put her place in the UK called “Sonora Taquería”? Pray it turns out!
https://t.co/zaVIXuOx1n pic.twitter.com/mtv8Is7ZjJ– Life is rare (@ChavoRica) September 17, 2022
I can’t believe some Brits want to sue a Mexican girl and her boyfriend for calling her Sonora “Taquería”…. In other words, they trademarked the word Taquería. Ball of greedy imbeciles who want to get money from Mexican culture, culturally appropriation at its max
– Alejandra Lomelí (@AleLomeliG) September 15, 2022
It is not the first time that a case like this reaches the digital pulse that qualifies it as cultural appropriation, let us remember the trend that originated in TikTok on the “spa water” that many young Americans called Mexican fresh waters like that.
And this is how, again, social networks can be a great sale of communication and exhibition of this type of cases that are very rarely revealed.
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