Advertisement Taco-versy: Restaurant owner says inflammatory taco names are all in good fun Share Shares Copy Link Copy

An Albuquerque menu with a political twist. At Urban Taqueria, one will find tacos and burritos named after popular terms coined by President Donald Trump, such as "the immigrant," "the wall," and "lock her up." The owner of the restaurant, Hanif Mohamed, said the menu is edgy, but its purpose is to spark conversation during a polarized time in our country."Ninety-nine percent of the people who walk in, more than 99 percent, don't seem to have an issue with it," Mohamed said. "The menu's not designed to insult people or hurt people, but it's just meant to keep the conversation going as to what's happening around us."But some think the menu is offensive. "The way things are right now. It's not good," said Juan Hernandez. "We need to have respect for others and have limits."A University of New Mexico professor, Patricia Perea, said normalizing phrases that have been said in a context of hate speech is dangerous."It seems fun, it seems like you can make fun of this and maybe make it lighthearted, but you really can't, you're offending a whole community," Perea said. "It's normalizing the terms and potentially turning them into funny or humorous terms, and the more that you do that, the more likely people are to repeat them and perhaps forget the contexts in which they were said." But of course while there are some who disagree with it, others think it's all in good nature."To me it's not offensive," said Christy Garcia. "I just think it's interesting that they decided to be so bold with the names." Urban Taqueria opened six weeks ago. Mohamed said a lot of his staff are immigrants.