Skip to main content

The Real Story of Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo, directly translated to English as “The Fifth of May,” is not Mexican Independence Day, which is a common and understandable misconception here in the US, since we refer to our own independence day as the 4th of July. Instead, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexican army’s unlikely victory in the face of great odds over the French at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. The holiday is actually barely celebrated beyond one small town in Mexico, but the story is unexpectedly intertwined with US history in quite an interesting way. 

Mexico declared independence from the Spanish colonial government in 1810 and Cinco de Mayo has its roots in the aftermath of the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, the Mexican Civil War of 1858, and the Reform Wars of 1860. To finance these expensive conflicts, Mexico had borrowed heavily from England, Spain, and France, and in 1861 newly elected liberal President Benito Juárez decided to suspend all foreign debt payments for two years in an attempt to give the Mexican economy a chance to recover. In response, the French Army marched 6,000 troops towards Mexico City, but they were defeated before they could even get there. They met resistance at the city of Puebla when young general Ignacio Zaragoza beat back the French troops with about 4,000 Mexican militia armed with just antiquated maskets, machetes, and farm implements. The battle lasted from daybreak to early evening, when the French retreated. The French lost nearly 500 soldiers, while the Mexican defenders lost less than 100. Although the fighting within Mexico continued and the French were not driven out for another five years, the victory at Puebla became a symbol of Mexican resistance to foreign domination. 

During the time of the Battle of Puebla in Mexico, the United States was engaged in its own Civil War and French presence in Mexico was a strategic move. By gaining a toehold in Mexico, the French could then support the Confederate Army. The unexpected defeat of the French during the Battle of Puebla weakened the French military, and helped stave them off the Union forces. Thus, Cinco de Mayo can be seen as a turning point in the U.S. Civil War. If the French had not been thwarted in Puebla, it is quite probable that they would have become an ally and fortified the Confederate South, and then the U.S. Civil War might have had a very different outcome. 




Mexicans and Latinos living in California during the 1860s are credited with being the first to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, and it was quite a while before it was observed in Mexico. California had only been annexed by Mexico and became a part of the United States a mere 10 years earlier, so there was a lot of Mexican population and pride, as there remains today. Mexican miners far up in the gold country town of Columbia were so overjoyed at the news of Mexico’s victory that they spontaneously fired off rifle shots and fireworks, sang patriotic songs and made impromptu speeches. Cinco de Mayo has been celebrated in California continuously ever since. For many years it was virtually ignored in Mexico. 

Today, Cinco de Mayo is celebrated predominately in Puebla. Celebrations include military parades, recreations of the Battle of Puebla and other festive events. But for the rest of Mexico, May 5 is a day like any other. Chicano activists raised awareness of the holiday in the US in the 1960s, in part because they identified with the victory of Indigenous Mexicans (such as Juárez) over European invaders during the Battle of Puebla. Today, revelers mark the occasion with parades, parties, mariachi music, Mexican folk dancing, traditional foods and overflowing margaritas. In the United States Cinco de Mayo has evolved into a celebration of Mexican culture and heritage.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is 5 Little Monkeys Racist?

I’ve seen a lot of Tik Toks debunking children’s nursery rhymes lately. I have two toddlers, so now whenever I hear one of those rhymes, I think about their unsavory origins. But my son loves, loves Five Little Monkeys. He’s just learning to talk, and can almost say it by himself. I’ve thought about telling him to stop singing it since I learned in the original lyrics it’s not monkeys jumping on the bed, but he just gets so much joy from singing it as he jumps up and falls down, I thought... no harm, no foul, right? As long as he thinks the song is about monkeys, it’s ok.  Until my niece came over one day, and the three toddlers were playing on an old mattress we have on the living room floor for them to jump around on. My son asked me to sing 5 Little Monkeys. At first it was cute, because they literally were jumping on the bed, but then I took a good look at the three of them.  My kids are half-Guatemalan but very fair, like I am. Whereas my niece is half-black, and her skin happens
Post a Comment
Read more

Why You Should Travel with Little Kids

I took my first cross-country road trip when I was six-weeks-old. My parents loaded me up in an old Ford Wagoneer and drove me home from my dad's hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, to my hometown of Ojai, CA. After that, we traveled back and forth between the East Coast and the West Coast every summer of my life. A few times we flew, but most years we loaded up the car with the suitcases, the dogs, and the children and drove 3,000 miles across the country. This early exposure to travel instilled within me a joy of seeing the world, and since that first trip I have visited 34 states and 14 countries. And I hope to share that same joy with my own little ones. Traveling with children can be hard--it disrupts their nap schedules, may involve crossing timelines, and definitely pushes everyone beyond their comfort zones. But seeing different countries and different parts of our country as children gives them a greater appreciation for cultural and regional differences, and it widens their exper
10 comments
Read more

Reflections on Immigrant Life and the American Dream by a New Citizen

  Buenos días estudiantes de sexto grado. Mi nombre es Audelina Barrios, and I am a former student of Fuller Middle School. Soy de Guatemala, y viví mis primeros trece años de mi vida en mi tierra natal, pero desafortunadamente perdí a mis padres cuando tenía 12 años. Mi hermano y yo fuimos huérfanos por un año hasta que tomamos la decisión de empezar nuestro viaje hacia los United States to meet our oldest siblings.  In August of 2014 we finally arrived in the land of our dreams, the United States. During our first 4 months in the US, we lived in New Jersey with my oldest sister, Rosa, and went to a school where ESL didn't even exist. I was paired up with the only Latino in the school y sin saber una palabra en inglés. I felt like an outsider because I had no other friends and like I wasn't even part of the school system.  In January 2015 my older brother Francisco and his wife, Mae, adopted us and we moved to Framingham. My first school in Framingham was Fuller Middle School
Post a Comment
Read more