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By now you’ve probably seen an article or newscast about Pizza Patrón’s acceptance of Mexican pesos at all 59 of its stores. If you haven’t, the quick and dirty is that the Texas-based company has started a limited-time program were they will accept the peso – as well as US currency, of course – as a method of payment for their pizzas. What is interesting about this experiment is not the experiment itself but rather then unusual backlash. The company receives complaints on a daily basis in the form of phone calls and emails demanding that the company stop this program. It has even been reported that they have received at least one death threat.

The ABCNews.com article also ran a poll: “Should U.S. Stores Accept Pesos?â€? As of this morning I was amazed to see that out of 2,253 votes a whopping 1,762 voted “Noâ€?, meaning that stores should only accept the dollar. This could be partly due to ABCNews.com’s way of wording the choices:

No. The dollar is the unit of currency in the United States, and its dominance should be protected. (Emphasis mine.)

Yes. Money is money. It should be up to the merchant to decide what it accepts.

So, maybe just by the wording alone it scared some people into voting No, but with the public outcry against Pizza Patrón it is obvious that this has hit a nerve.

The level of passion against this idea is mind boggling to me. On a daily basis companies deal in international transactions with customers from other parts of the world. We –- the US — are one of the largest members of a world-economy. It’s what we do. If we were to sell a product to a German-based company, we would sell it in US dollars. But in reality all that is really happening is that the German company will pay the appropriate amount in Euro’s to their bank who will wire it to my bank -– at which time it gets converted to US currency. That’s a simplistic view of the process, but that’s basically how it works. All Pizza Patrón is doing is cutting out the exchange middle-man by accepting the peso themselves. They will then later convert it into US currency and deposit it into their bank. How exactly is this different than what any business with international customers does on a daily basis? Why is this looked at as some kind of pox on the US that will apparently lead to its demise?

Though this program may not truly see a high rate of return on the program in cities like Dallas, any of their stores in border towns will most likely reap the largest benefit. It has been my experience that most border towns across the globe tend to accept the currency of the country just across the border from them. It makes good business sense. Why turn away a customer if they are paying in a foreign currency as long as you can easily and cheaply convert that currency?

So, the question is why are US citizens so scared of the peso? Or is this just another facet of racism?