#LatinoRebels10: From 2017, the Super Bowl Immigration Ad That Wasn’t Really an Immigration Ad

May 12, 2021
10:12 PM

Illustration by Alex Charner

For this sixth installment of #LatinoRebels10 in celebration of Latino Rebels’ 10th anniversary, we look back to a story from 2017 about a Super Bowl ad that was just a Trump talking point. For more installments, click here.

On February 5, 2017, during Super Bowl LI, a commercial by 84 Lumber that appeared to humanize the immigration debate was actually not that at all.

Instead, the commercial was just a tribute that what Donald Trump kept saying on the campaign trial—that his promised border wall would have a “big beautiful door.”

By the time we found out more about 84 Lumber, it was clear that the ad wasn’t really celebrating anything, just Trump talking points.

That disconnect only served to symbolize the polarization of the immigration debate and how it has also been dehumanized. The 84 Lumber hid its neo-nativism, fooling more people during a Super Bowl ad into thinking that it was elevating the plight of families fleeing violence for a better life.

That was just not true.

Why the ‘Pro-Immigrant’ Super Bowl Ads Were Really Fascist Propaganda (OPINION)

But it’s not like Super Bowl ads messed up before this. For example, take this ad from 2013:

Yes, we had takes about that ad as well.

“God Made a Farmer” Super Bowl Commercial Celebrates Farmers, Yet Ignores Reality

The Farmers That Pablo Harvey Forgot on Super Bowl Sunday: Video Responses by Isaac Cubillos and Cuéntame