Unanue | |
---|---|
Business | |
Current region | Manhattan, New York City, United States East Coast |
Place of origin | Valle de Mena, Burgos, Spain |
Founded |
|
Founder | Prudencio Unanue Ortiz (1886–1976) |
Members | 12 incl: Joseph A. Unanue Andy Unanue Robert Unanue (CEO) |
The Unanue family of New York City is a wealthy American family of Spanish, and ultimately of Basque, origin. They were the 170th richest family in the United States in 2014 according to Forbes , having a net worth of US$1.1 billion. [1]
The patriarch, Prudencio Unanue Ortiz, migrated from Spain in the 20th century and established Goya Foods, the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the United States. [2] The family's members include Joseph A. Unanue and Andy Unanue. Goya Foods is the 377th largest private American company. [3]
Prudencio Unanue Ortiz (1886–1976), [5] was the founder of Goya Foods. He was born in Villasana de Mena, [5] in the province of Burgos, in northern Spain. In 1903, at the age of seventeen, Unanue migrated to San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, in search of employment opportunities and established a small food distribution business. In 1918 he moved on to New York City, to enroll in the Albany Business School, and in 1921 returned to San Lorenzo to marry Carolina Casal de Valdés (1890–1984), from Pontevedra, Galicia, whom he had met there and whose parents had also emigrated from Spain. [6]
The year after their marriage, the Unanues moved to New Jersey, where Don Prudencio, as he was always known in his firm, became a broker for Spanish foods. The company was originally known as Unanue & Sons and in 1961 it changed to Goya Foods. [7] The couple had four sons, Joseph A., Charles, Francisco and Anthony. [8]
The family supported Michelle Obama in 2012 with MyPlate, an initiative to encourage Hispanics and African Americans to eat balanced meals. [17]
In July 2020, Goya Foods CEO Robert Unanue visited the White House and pledged one million cans of Goya chickpeas to food banks, saying "Americans are truly blessed to have a leader like Donald Trump." [18] The comments sparked some negative reactions and calls for a boycott of Goya Foods, [19] [20] which in turn sparked counter-boycotts in support of Goya. [21]
On 7 December 2020, CEO Robert Unanue stated that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was named "employee of the month" after her boycott call led to a tenfold sales spike. [22]
On January 20, 2021, Goya Foods CEO Robert Unanue claimed on Fox Business that the novel coronavirus was used by the Democratic party, media, and technology elites to control the American public and steal the 2020 US presidential election: “I think this is mission accomplished — mission accomplished by the union, the partnership, the conglomerate of social media, Big Tech, big media, and government, big government — for ushering in the dawn of a new world order, this Great Reset, with an unverified election.” [23] In the same interview, Unanue also claimed that the coronavirus would disappear soon after the inauguration of Joe Biden: “There is a war coming, now that the president is leaving today, there's still coming after the United States, the working class. They've decimated the working class this year by shutting down the economy.” [23]
On January 25, 2021, Robert Unanue was censured by Goya's board of directors after he made unfounded public claims about voter fraud during and after the 2020 presidential election. He is not allowed to speak to the press in regard to the politics of the company without permission from the board. [24] [25]
In February 2021, in a speech given at CPAC, Robert Unanue continued to deny the results of the 2020 election, falsely stating that Trump was "the real, the legitimate, and still the actual president of the United States”. Unanue also stated "We still have faith that the majority of the people in the United States voted for the president," despite Biden defeating Trump by more than 7 million votes. [26] [27]
Robert Unanue also spoke on the first night of the 2024 Republican National Convention and during a Donald Trump rally hosted by Turning Point USA in Glendale, Arizona.
Goya Foods, Inc. is a producer and distributor of foods and beverages sold in the United States and many Spanish-speaking countries. It has facilities in the United States, the Dominican Republic and Spain. It is under third-generation ownership of the Spanish-American Unanue family and is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Joseph Andrew Unanue was an American-born son of Spanish parents who was the president of Goya Foods, the largest Hispanic–owned food company in the United States.
An anti-boycott, counter-boycott, or buycott is the excess buying of a particular brand or product in an attempt to counter a boycott of the same brand or product. Anti-boycott measures could also be in the form of laws and regulations adopted by a state to prohibit the act of boycott among its citizens.
Denisse Marie Oller is a journalist, documentarian, entrepreneur, author, chef, and healthy living advocate.
José Ramón Andrés Puerta is a Spanish-American chef and restaurateur. Born in Spain, he moved to the United States in the early 1990s and since then, he has opened restaurants in several American cities. He has won a number of awards, both for his cooking, and his humanitarian work. He is a professor as well as the founder of the Global Food Institute at George Washington University.
Pedro Rafael Pierluisi Urrutia is a Puerto Rican politician and lawyer currently serving as governor of Puerto Rico since January 2, 2021. He has previously served as secretary of justice, resident commissioner, acting secretary of state, de facto governor of Puerto Rico and as private attorney for Puerto Rico's fiscal oversight board under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act. He is a member of the New Progressive Party and the Democratic Party of the United States.
Andy Unanue is an American businessman and investor. He is the current Managing Partner of AUA Private Equity Partners, an operationally-focused, lower middle-market private equity firm that targets Hispanic-oriented and family-owned companies. Unanue is the former Chief Operating Officer of the family-owned Goya Foods, the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the United States.
Jose Antonio Ortega Bonet was a Cuban-born entrepreneur and businessman who founded the Sazón Goya Food Company. Ortega, who was nicknamed "Pepe", was known as "El Gallego" to his friends.
The Puerto Rico statehood movement aims to make Puerto Rico a state of the United States. Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territorial possession of the United States acquired in 1898 following the Spanish–American War, making it "the oldest colony in the modern world". As of 2023, the population of Puerto Rico is 3.2 million, around half the average state population and higher than that of 19 U.S. states. Statehood is one of several competing options for the future political status of Puerto Rico, including: maintaining its current status, becoming fully independent, or becoming a freely associated state. Puerto Rico has held six referendums on the topic. These are non-binding, as the power to grant statehood lies with the US Congress. The most recent referendum was in November 2020, with a majority (52.52%) of those who voted opting for statehood.
The Popular Democratic Party is a political party in Puerto Rico that advocates to continue as a Commonwealth of the United States with self-governance. The party was founded in 1938 by dissidents from the Puerto Rican Liberal Party and the Unionist Party and originally promoted policies on the center-left. In recent years, however, its leaders have described the party as centrist.
Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto is a Puerto Rican politician who served as mayor of the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico from 2013 to 2020. From 2009 through 2013, Cruz served in the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico.
David Alfred Perdue Jr. is an American politician and business executive who served as a United States senator from Georgia from 2015 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, Perdue was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Georgia in 2022.
Spanish Americans are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from Spain. They are the longest-established European American group in the modern United States, with a very small group descending from those explorations leaving from Spain and the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and starting in the early 1500s, of 42 of the future U.S. states from California to Florida; and beginning a continuous presence in Florida since 1565 and New Mexico since 1598. In the 2020 United States census, 978,978 self-identified with "Spaniard" origins representing (0.4%) of the white alone or in combination population who responded to the question. Other results include 866,356 (0.4%) identifying as "Spanish" and 50,966 who identified with "Spanish American".
Stafford Fitzgerald Haney is an American diplomat and businessman who served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Costa Rica from 2015 to 2017. Haney was nominated as U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica by President Barack Obama on July 8, 2014, and was confirmed by the full Senate on May 23, 2015. He served until July 15, 2017, having been the only Obama-appointed political ambassador in the world allowed to stay under the Donald Trump administration.
Donald Trump's tenure as the 45th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican from New York City, took office following his Electoral College victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, in which he lost the popular vote to Clinton by nearly three million votes. Upon his inauguration, he became the first president in American history without prior public office or military background. Trump made an unprecedented number of false or misleading statements during his campaign and presidency. His presidency ended following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election to former Democratic vice president Joe Biden, after one term in office.
A referendum on the political status of Puerto Rico was held in Puerto Rico on June 11, 2017. The referendum had three options: becoming a state of the United States, independence/free association, or maintaining the current territorial status. Those who voted overwhelmingly chose statehood by 97%. This figure is attributed to a boycott led by the pro-status quo PPD party, which resulted in a 22.93% turnout.
Donald Trump is closely associated with the sport of golf. As a real estate developer, Trump began acquiring and constructing golf courses in 1999. By the time of his election as United States President in 2016, he owned 17 golf courses worldwide through his holding company, the Trump Organization. Courses owned by Trump have been selected to host various PGA and LPGA events, including the 2022 PGA Championship. A spokesman for the Trump Organization said that "This is a breach of a binding contract and they have no right to terminate the agreement".
Events in the year 2020 in Puerto Rico.
Mike Opelka is an American radio broadcaster and television producer, in Houston, New York, Delaware, and nationally.
In 2013, a statue of Baseball Hall of Fame outfielder Roberto Clemente was unveiled at Roberto Clemente State Park in Morris Heights, The Bronx, New York City. The statue was commissioned Goya Foods and was created by sculptor Maritza Hernandez. It was the first statue honoring a Puerto Rican to be unveiled in New York City.