CONTRIBUTED PHOTO A new billboard that reads “Make Tacos, Not War” is situated outside of La Carreta Mexican Grill at 308 Iowa Ave. E. in Marshalltown. Alfonso Medina, the owner of the restaurant, said he shared the slogan in response to recent events in Ukraine and Gaza.

La Carreta Mexican Grill Owner Alfonso Medina is no stranger to concise, catchy slogans — back in 2020, his “No Love, No Tacos” campaign went viral and garnered widespread media attention across the country. Recently, he unveiled a new billboard outside of the restaurant at 108 Iowa Ave. E. with a similarly brief but powerful message: “Make Tacos, Not War.”

Medina said he had seen the phrase online and decided to share it locally as a direct response to world events in Ukraine and Gaza.

“I’m not taking a political stance but, again, standing up for human rights and human decency and protecting one’s life and the life of children and women and overall innocent beings,” he said. “With everything that’s going on in the Middle East and Ukraine and Russia, we decided to put it out there and send our message out mainly because of the lives that are being lost of innocent children.”

He joked that representatives at the company he works with, Reagan Outdoor Advertising, had been asking him when he was going to generate another viral slogan, and the previous “Taco Enforcer” billboard with a police car drew plenty of attention from drivers who thought they might actually be getting pulled over.

In discussing the Gaza conflict, Medina said he felt it was no longer a war and had essentially become a genocide as the women and children who live in the territory have no means of defending themselves from the Israeli military.

“We’re always going to stand up for the rights of innocent people. Nowadays, it’s a lot different than a conflict 20 or 30 years ago with social media and having the information at the tip of your hands immediately, live,” he said. “The media of whatever country can’t really twist it to their own views and interests. We’re seeing it, so we are the ones that are judging. We’re seeing the unfiltered footage, and we are making our own decisions.”

His ultimate message, he added, is that “there’s never going to be a winner” in a war, and the innocent people caught in the middle always suffer the most. So far, he said, the reaction to the new campaign has been relatively muted when compared to “No Love, No Tacos,” but he hopes the anti-war message can strike a universal chord.

“Nobody wants to be in war. If you want to be in a war just for the fun of it, then there’s something wrong with you,” he said. “There’s nothing good about war… The United Nations has already condemned (the situation in Gaza), and they’re just doing whatever they’re doing. I know the U.S. with our taxpaying dollars, me, as a business owner, I’m not very happy. I pay a lot of taxes, and me knowing that some of that money that I’m collecting at this establishment is going to aid Israel, I’m seeing raw footage of what they’re doing with at least a portion of that money. It’s not a good feeling. It’s not a good feeling to come every day knowing what our government is doing.”

Medina also shouted out the World Central Kitchen, a humanitarian organization that provides meals to areas devastated by war or natural disasters — including Marshalltown in 2020 after the derecho — and the fact that seven of its workers were killed by an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) drone strike in Gaza on April 1. And despite his strong feelings on the matter, he doesn’t want to be seen as pro-Palestine or pro-Israel, but rather pro-humanity.

“I know what the terrorist group did (on Oct. 7, 2023). That’s what they’re arguing, like, ‘Hey, but our hostages.’ Nobody’s gonna win. What is true is that Israel is killing a lot of innocent people that have nothing to do with it. That’s just a fact,” Medina said. “I know their target is to dismantle Hamas, but that’s a byproduct of it… Again, the whole world is watching, so at the end of the day, I think, in my opinion, whoever brings world peace when it comes to voting or elections, that’s who I would vote for. Whoever brings peace and stability.”

In the end, any slogan that Medina does choose to put out into the world will come “from the heart,” he said, and he will continue to speak his mind as long as he owns the business. Visitors have already traveled from as far as Iowa City and Des Moines to buy “Make Tacos, Not War” t-shirts because they saw them on Facebook.

“That little five-year-old girl, you know, who’s so happy wearing a little t-shirt, that could plant the seed in her. You don’t know what she’s gonna be a leader of when she grows up. Maybe peace might not come now, but it could come in the future through a young generation that started at a little Mexican restaurant. You just don’t know the domino effect that it can have,” he said.