Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoȋt Nadeau, authors of The Story of Spanish, point out that Cinco de Mayo No Hecho en México, Actually
Cinco is as American as apple pie. So is the U.S. Hispanic melting pot.
Exactly how Cinco de Mayo turned into the signature celebration of the United States’ 52 million Hispanics is a bit of a mystery—especially since it is hardly celebrated in Mexico outside of the State of Puebla. Cinco de Mayo has no association with Mexican independence. It commemorates a battle on May 5, 1862, in which the Mexican army vanquished the well-equipped French forces of Napoleon III.
No one knows exactly why Hispanics in California began celebrating Cinco de Mayo at the end of the 1860s.
It was a good excuse for a party?
What we do know is that in the 1970s cultural organizers in San Francisco selected Cinco de Mayo from among a slate of holidays as the best pan-national Latino celebration in the U.S. It was a savvy choice. Most Mexicans had never heard of the holiday, so it didn’t carry the risk of pitting different Hispanic nationalities against one another.
I had never heard of cinco de mayo until quite recently, either. Neither had several friends and acquaintances from Latin America, who found out about it once they moved to the USA.
What does The Most Interesting Man in the World have to say about this?
By the way, Bronx native Jonathan Goldsmith is The Most Interesting Man in the World.
Buy the book, drink the beer. Skol!
UPDATE,
The article’s author left a comment! Thank you!
[post updated with info on TMIMitW]
“No one knows exactly why Hispanics in California began celebrating Cinco de Mayo at the end of the 1860s.”
As a native Californian, I think I have an idea why: By the 1860s, California had been US territory for only roughly 20 years, and there was a fair amount of resentment among the formerly Mexican citizens toward the newcomers. Since Cinco de Mayo celebrates Mexicans beating an invader, maybe those early celebrations were a disguised bit of nationalism on the part of “los Californios,” aimed at their conquerors.
I’d like to think they were flipping a subtle finger at their new neighbors, anyway. 🙂
That’s probably an accurate assessment, Phineas!
Hi, I’m the author of the article.
This is probably right, but we don’t know. If this right, though, it was probably wise on the part of the Californios since they could always hide between the American doctrine of Manifest Destiny – the idea that European powers had no business on the continent. So in a way, it was probably a skillful and politically correct way to express very strong nationalisme while being politically acceptable to Americans.
A theory…