Cinco de Mayo

Today at work we had a Cinco de Mayo celebration. Now if like me you have never heard of Cinco de Mayo let me explain. This is a National Mexican holiday which celebrates the defeat of the French in Mexico by General Serpione. It is also widely celebrated in the US, particularly in States that border Mexico. There are 2 reasons for this, the first being that there are a lot of Hispanic people here in California, and the 2nd reason is that Americans love an excuse to eat and or shop. All of their celebrations are around eating and shopping, Thanksgiving is a huge glut of food, and when the Turkey is done the next day is the biggest shopping day of the year.

But like Thanksgiving most Americans that I speak to have no real idea or concept of what it is really about. They know that Independence Day is when they “whipped your limey ass” but they don’t know the ins and outs of the war of independence, few of them remember how much the French helped them in that war. Few can really talk deeply about the real reason for Thanksgiving, and few see the irony of giving thanks to the Native American who in return they almost wiped out. And Cinco de Mayo (Fifth of May in Spanish) few if any know why it is celebrated, and even fewer realize just how it helped the US survive as a country. The battle of Puebla should be celebrated in the US because the French forces that were involved not only wanted to take Mexico but were looking to take advantage of the US Civil War and take huge tracts of land by coming up through Mexico. The fact that they were routed and slowed down by the Mexicans saved the Union forces from having to fight another enemy, and concentrate their forces on the confederates.

So I enjoyed my chicken and bean dinner and told my colleagues why we were doing it, but they didn’t care, they just wanted to eat, go shopping tomorrow and perhaps crack open a Corona – come to think of it maybe they have the right idea.