{"id":32603,"date":"2025-07-02T12:52:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T12:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/32603\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T12:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T12:52:09","slug":"tortas-manantial-pelted-with-poor-reviews-over-trump-hat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/32603\/","title":{"rendered":"Tortas Manantial pelted with poor reviews over Trump hat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tortas Manantial is a cautionary tale for all Hispanic-owned businesses. If your politics offend customers &#8211; many who are fearing deportation under Trump &#8211; you will get burned.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;z-index:2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/78424075007-1238070720.jpg\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vidplayicon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\" alt=\"play\" style=\"height:40px;margin:auto 18px auto 27px;width:40px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Former MAGA members recall how, and why, they left the community<\/p>\n<p>Leaving MAGA was set up for those who have left MAGA or for those too afraid to leave.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The owner&#8217;s daughter of Tortas Manantial, a Phoenix restaurant, posted a photo of herself wearing a MAGA hat, sparking backlash from its predominantly Hispanic customer base.<\/li>\n<li>The restaurant owner posted a video touting his immigrant roots but never mentions Trump, doesn&#8217;t address his daughter&#8217;s post or apologize.<\/li>\n<li>The restaurant continues to face negative reviews and loss of business due to the incident.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What happens when a torta shop becomes ground zero for a political explosion? It costs them business.<\/p>\n<p>In a deeply divided America, where a post can trigger a boycott and a hat can start a firestorm, Tortas Manantial \u2014 a restaurant with multiple locations serving metro Phoenix for more than two decades \u2014 found itself walking straight into the fire.<\/p>\n<p>And it all started with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-14828937\/mexican-restaurant-staff-daughter-endorses-donald-trump.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">post showcasing the red hat<\/a>. Yes, that one, the Make America Great Again hat.<\/p>\n<p>Karla Barbosa, daughter of the restaurant\u2019s owner and the public face of the business, proudly posted a photo of herself wearing the MAGA hat on social media.<\/p>\n<p>But it wasn\u2019t just the hat \u2014 it was the tone. The defiance. The unapologetic snub of those who are against Trump\u2019s hardline policies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany are mad but trust the process,\u201d Karla posted. \u201cAmerica will be great again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tortas shop owner didn&#8217;t actually apologize<\/p>\n<p>It wouldn\u2019t be such a big deal if it wasn\u2019t for the fact that the tortas shop\u2019s customers are mostly Hispanic, many of whom are most certainly fearing deportation under Trump. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The reaction? Fast and furious.<\/p>\n<p>And the backlash hasn\u2019t simmered down \u2014 it\u2019s still boiling, and customers who turned away, apparently, aren\u2019t coming back anytime soon.<\/p>\n<p>Its owner, Marco Antonio Barbosa, posted a video on social media reassuring customers that he and his wife are immigrants themselves and \u201cwould never hurt my community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"related-link\"><strong style=\"margin-right:3px\">Opinion: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azcentral.com\/story\/opinion\/op-ed\/elviadiaz\/2025\/06\/12\/ice-immigration-raids-worker-shortage-business\/84158396007\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trump&#8217;s immigration crackdown misses a major target: employers<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But he never mentioned his daughter and Trump and never acknowledged the post. Essentially, he never apologized.<\/p>\n<p>That was just a desperate attempt to get customers back.<\/p>\n<p>MAGA hat backlash is a cautionary tale for businesses<\/p>\n<p>Is it too little too late? Many on social media certainly think so and have gone out of their way to leave bad reviews everywhere they can.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve left repeated messages for Marco Antonio, but he didn\u2019t return them. Karla, meanwhile, has made her social media private. No statement. No walking back anything.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t just a story about a restaurant. It\u2019s a cautionary tale.<\/p>\n<p>Because in 2025, if you\u2019re a Hispanic-owned business, politics isn\u2019t something you can ignore \u2014 it\u2019s the air you breathe, the fire you dodge, the storm you try to survive.<\/p>\n<p>And for Tortas Manantial, that storm by many accounts still is hitting them hard.<\/p>\n<p>Elvia D\u00edaz is editorial page editor for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.\u00a0Reach her at 602-444-8606 or\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:elvia.diaz@arizonarepublic.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">elvia.diaz@arizonarepublic.com<\/a>. Follow her on X\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elviadiaz1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">@elviadiaz1<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"exclude-from-newsgate\">Like this column? Get more opinions in your email inbox by signing up for our free\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/profile.azcentral.com\/newsletters\/todays-opinions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">opinions newsletter<\/a>, which publishes Monday through Friday.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tortas Manantial is a cautionary tale for all Hispanic-owned businesses. If your politics offend customers &#8211; many who&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5377,647,5229,5643,1587,27385,16229,13045,16956,27387,17174,25982,990,27383,18769,409,5376,27382,425,993,27381,27386,451,50,450,457,3546,19818,1589,80,10440,10444,27384,988,5378,5381,3161,5380,1194,5379,646,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-32603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-advocacy","9":"tag-affiliate","10":"tag-america","11":"tag-arizona","12":"tag-az","13":"tag-branch","14":"tag-cuisines","15":"tag-deportation","16":"tag-discrimination","17":"tag-discrimination-u0026-identity-relations","18":"tag-executive","19":"tag-executive-branch","20":"tag-food","21":"tag-hispanics","22":"tag-identity","23":"tag-immigration","24":"tag-issues","25":"tag-latinos","26":"tag-local","27":"tag-local-affiliate-food","28":"tag-mexican","29":"tag-mexican-restaurants","30":"tag-negative","31":"tag-news","32":"tag-overall","33":"tag-overall-negative","34":"tag-people","35":"tag-people-u0026-society","36":"tag-phoenix","37":"tag-politics","38":"tag-prospects","39":"tag-prospects-az","40":"tag-relations","41":"tag-restaurants","42":"tag-sensitive","43":"tag-sensitive-subjects","44":"tag-social","45":"tag-social-issues-u0026-advocacy","46":"tag-society","47":"tag-subjects","48":"tag-u0026","49":"tag-united-states","50":"tag-united-states-of-america","51":"tag-unitedstates","52":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","53":"tag-us","54":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}