This Restaurant Chain Is Using Pizza and Pesos to Fight for the Rights of Immigrants

If there is one thing a childhood absolutely riddled with the animated escapades of mutant turtles and their crippling food addiction has taught us, it's that nothing brings people together like a sweet slice of 'za. The civil rights movement may have had Martin Luther King Jr. and feminism had Gloria Steinem, but the entire world has pizza. After all, nothing says "equality" quite like the play of light as it dances on the glistening puddles of greasy cheese.

The people at one Dallas-based pizza chain would certainly agree.

Pizza Patron—which has 59 stores in Texas, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, and California—values its Hispanic customers. In fact, the company says that 60 percent of them are Hispanic.

So on September 16, the day of the second GOP debate, Pizza Patron is entering the political fray by throwing some beans on a pizza and offering a special promotion. Their Frijolera Pizza will be available for only 50 Mexican pesos, or around $3. That's a nice discount from the everyday price for this pizza of $8.99, or approximately 150 Mexican pesos.

And yes, you read that correctly. Pizza Patron accepts Mexican pesos in its all-American outlets.

Wait till good ol' Donald weighs in on this one.

Pizza Patron is evidently quite masterful at creating promotional events that tie in to the national debate on immigration—or promote the realities of our growing Hispanic population, depending on how you see things. For more than eight years, the company has had its Pizza Por Pesos program in place. That means customers can pay at any Pizza Patron—from Dallas to Denver—with Mexican pesos. Only bills are accepted; change is given in US currency.

In 2012, the company kicked it up a notch by instituting the Pizza Por Favor program, pursuant to which they gave away free pizzas to anyone who ordered in Spanish. And they probably weren't expecting gringos to crack open their Spanish 101 textbooks. They were—and are—targeting their solid base of Hispanic customers.

The people behind Pizza Patron believe that rather than being a drag on America and its economy, their customers are a boon to it. Andrew Gamm, executive vice president for Pizza Patron, explains: "With the economy being such a hot issue in the presidential race, our position is that we would much rather have Mexican pesos coming into the US than US dollars going to Mexico. "

Of course, being an ambassador of immigrant rights via pizza isn't always going to win you friends. The pizza chain has received numerous death threats and hate letters over their acceptance of pesos as valid currency. One detractor emailed the chain and said: "This is the United States of America, not the United States of Mexico." Yet another had this to say: "Quit catering to the damn illegal Mexicans."

Still, the Pizza Patron management intends to carry on. Gamm says, "Over the years, Pizza Patron has accepted tens of millions of Mexican pesos at our stores. These transactions benefit the US economy, and as anyone can see, it just makes good business sense for our American company. Anyone who has some extra Mexican pesos lying around can exchange them at any Pizza Patron for a fresh, made-to-order pizza any day of the week."

Could it be that Trump and the haters are wrong? That Mexicans are not "killing us" or "wreaking havoc" on our economy? That they are contributing to a growing business by spending their currency here?

Gamm thinks so. He says, "The American dream is alive and well at Pizza Patron."