Cinco de Mayo marks Mexico’s against-all-odds victory against invading French troops in 1862.
But to some Americans, it’s simply Cinco de Drinko, an excuse to party with little to no understanding of what the Mexican holiday celebrates. Many who think they know what Cinco de Mayo is about wrongly assume it’s Mexico’s Independence Day. (It’s not.)
“Everyone thinks that it’s just party time, it’s Corona time,” said Mario García, a Chicanx historian from the University of California at Santa Barbara.
“It’s OK for people to go out and have a good time on a holiday like Cinco de Mayo — at least they have some sense that it’s some kind of a Mexican holiday,” García said. “But we should go beyond that. We should have Cinco de Mayo events that go beyond partying and drinking, where we call attention to what the history is.”
So what does Cinco de Mayo celebrate?
Mexican Independence Day, or Día de la Independencia, came on Sept. 16, 1810, when the country broke free of Spanish rule.
Cinco de Mayo came more than 50 years later when French Emperor Napoleon III wanted to claim Mexico for himself.
The French sent troops to force Mexico’s President Benito Juárez and the government out of Veracruz. On May 5, 1862, in a small town in east-central Mexico called Puebla, 2,000 Mexican soldiers faced 6,000 French troops at daybreak. Incredibly, Mexico claimed victory by the evening, and Juárez declared May 5 a national holiday.
The battle also played a role in the American Civil War. With the French defeated and leaving North America, the Confederacy wasn’t able to use them as an ally to win the war.
So why are so many Americans still confused?
Part of the confusion among many Americans about what Cinco de Mayo celebrates is likely because it’s much catchier-sounding and easier for English speakers to say than the day of Mexico’s independence (Diez y seis de Septiembre), García said.
But also a huge problem is that not enough American classrooms teach the importance of Chicanx history and its people’s contributions to the U.S.
“When you study the history of Chicanos and Latinos, of course, they’ve been history makers,” García said. “They’ve been involved in all aspects of American history, not to mention the wars … In World War II alone, almost half a million Latinos – mostly Mexican Americans – fought in the war. And they won a disproportionate number of congressional Medals of Honor.”
Why is Cinco de Mayo more popular in the U.S. than Mexico?
While there are Cinco De Mayo celebrations throughout Mexico, notably in the city of Puebla, the event doesn’t compare to the celebrations of Día de la Independencia, García said.
Meanwhile in the U.S., Cinco de Mayo has become an annual celebration of Mexican American culture.
The celebration of Cinco de Mayo began as a form of resistance to the effects of the Mexican-American War in the late 19th century. The holiday gained popularity during the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
“It becomes a Chicano holiday, in many ways, linked to the Chicano movement, because we discover Mexicans resisting a foreign invader,” García said. “They link the struggle of the Chicano movement to Cinco de Mayo.”
By the 1980s, companies began commercializing the holiday, especially by beer companies and restaurants that will offer Cinco de Mayo specials and cocktails. García jokingly refers to the day as “Corona Day.”
This Cinco de Mayo, García hopes everyone enjoys their Coronas, but perhaps with a little history lesson to wash it down.
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Jordan Mendoza and Maria Jimenez Moya contributed to this report.