Essay 4191

The item below appeared in Advertising Age’s Letters To The Editor. A brief MultiCultClassics reaction immediately follows…

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Use of ‘refugee’ not to be taken lightly

RE: “Five Crispin Refugees Set up Shop in L.A.” (AA, July 9). To use the word “refugee” to refer to five ad-agency employees who resigned to form their own boutique is poor form. Are these five former employees, as a result of events occurring before January 1, 1951 and owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, outside of their countries of nationality and unable or unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of those countries? Or do they lack a nationality and, being outside the country of their former habitual residence, are they unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to return? Regardless of how many awards Crispin has won, the agency is not considered a country of origin, nor is it considered a nationality (the last time I checked).

Moreover, do these five employees risk serious human-rights abuses because of who they are or what they believe? Do they face persecution or torture? I doubt it. To use “refugee” in this context dilutes the word’s potency and true meaning.

Nina Bastianelli
Chicago

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With all due respect to refugees past and present, if the ex-Crispin employees feared facing torture or “being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion,” well, they’d just be typical minorities on Madison Avenue.