Families celebrate alternative Thanksgiving with pizza and breadsticks

For many of us, Thanksgiving is a time for turkey, mashed potatos and gravy. But for others like the Hernandez family, Thanksgiving is a about pizza and breadsticks.It's an interesting take on a mexican/americans Thanksgiving tradition. Maria Hernandez was a student in my English class Freshman year. I remember her sharing her unique Thanksgiving experience with our class. I caught up with Hernandez last week and asked her a few questions about what Thanksgiving means to her.

Q: How long has your family been having pizza for Thanksgiving dinner?
A: For as long as I can remember. I think my parents never wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving, mainly because my Dad used to say how much he hated turkey. Pizza just sounded like a good choice.

Q: When does your family celebrate?
A: Thankgiving afternoon. We stuff our face with pizza, breadsticks and soda and then we eat chocolate cake and take a nap. We rent movies to and be lazy all day.

Q: Do you know why your family doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving?
A: I'm guessing it has something to do with my heritage. I don't think a lot of latinos celebrate Thanksgiving in Mexico, so it just carried on through my parents and their past holiday traditions.

Q:What kind of pizza do you eat? Thin, crispy, deep dish? From where?
A: We usually order Pizza Hut because they're open and we get the dip dish crust. I'am a fan of their supreme and breadsticks. I don't skip on how much food I eat. I usually down at least four slices, three glasses of pop and two breadsticks.

Q: Does everyone from your family come over? Does this style of Thanksgiving take away from the meaning of the holiday.
A: Yes, it is a pretty big pizzariffic time. My aunts, uncles, cousins. It is just like another family gathering, but a little differnt. Even though my family doesn't eat the same food as a lot of people do, I still think about the holiday as a time for sharing and being together with the people I love. I like our family's Thanksgving tradition. It makes us special in a way. And I get an excuse to eat mass amounts of pizza once every year.

The Pollyeye's Boycott Bandwagon

As you can read below in the post from the BG News, Pagliai's Pizza and Campus Pollyeyes experienced a boycott (via Facebook) following a sign posted opposing the ordinances. As you can also read, the whole thing was a big misunderstanding and the owners did not approve the sign's posting or even have a political stance on the issue.

The boycott was an interesting example of the effect of Facebook. People likely were invited to this group, read the page and then joined the "boycott" without ever seeking out the other side of the story. Despite an article in the BG News, as well as posts from the owner on the Facebook site, 352 people “like” the boycott page on Facebook and a wall post from November 12, stating “That's too bad, I love their food,” shows that some people are still unaware that the whole thing was a misunderstanding.

How much money has this local business lost due to this misunderstanding? The power of Facebook compelled at least 352 people to pledge to avoid Pollyeyes without any real evidence besides a posted sign, long removed by the time most of the members joined.

The thing I find most interesting is that 352 people (mostly students) jumped on the boycott bandwagon, but the combined total voters for the two on campus precincts was only 654, less than double the amount of boycotters.

The point being that while 352 people were ready to speak out against Polleye's “discrimination,” those same people likely did not even show up at the polls to vote on the ordinances.