The Surprising True History Behind Cinco de Mayo
May 04, 2016
Today,
Cinco de Mayo's actual meaning can be easily lost in an abundance of
margaritas—which might causing celebrants to completely overlook the
real history of the holiday, which dates back to strife in 19th-century
Mexico and the effect of the American Civil War on Latinos living in
what's now the Southwest.
The
holiday, which is often misconstrued as the Mexican Fourth of July, is
not at all what people think it is, says David E Hayes-Bautista,
Director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the
School of Medicine at UCLA.
"Cinco de Mayo is part of the Latino experience of the American Civil War," he says. "It's not about the Mexican experience."
In the early 1860s, Mexico had fallen in immense debt to France. That situation led Napoleon III, who had flirted with supporting the confederacy,
to send troops to not only overtake Mexico City, but also to help form a
Confederate-friendly country that would neighbor the South.
"The
French army was about four days from Mexico City when they had to go
through the town of Puebla, and as it happened, they didn't make it,"
Hayes-Bautista says. In a David-and-Goliath style triumph, the smaller
and less-equipped Mexican army held off French troops in the Battle of
Puebla, on the fifth of May of 1862. (The French army returned the following year and won, but it was the initial Mexican victory was still impressive.)
It
wasn't until May 27 that the news of the Battle of Puebla finally
reached California-based Latinos, who had been feeling disheartened as
Union forces were falling, quite disastrously so, to Robert E. Lee's
Confederate troops. The news from Mexico was doubly good for that
population: not only was Mexico victorious, but California—as a free
state—was also glad for the failure of the French plan to help the
Confederacy. This was particularly true for residents of Hispanic
origin, who had particular reason to oppose the South's system of white
supremacy.
Hayes-Bautista
cites Major Jose Ramon Pico, a general who organized Spanish-speaking
cavalries to fight alongside the Union in the Civil War, as a prime
example of what was at stake for some Latinos.
"His
grandmother was listed as Mulato in the 1790 census," he says. "He came
from an African-Mexican family, so he organized troops to fight for
freedom and [linked] the Civil War to the French intervention in
Mexico."
"By
the time [Latinos in California] heard about the news of the battle,
they began to raise money for the Mexican troops and they formed a
really important network of patriotic organizations," says Jose
Alamillo, a professor of Chicano studies at California State University
Channel Islands. "They had to kind of make the case for fighting for
freedom and democracy and they were able to link the struggle of Mexico
to the struggle of the Civil War, so there were simultaneous fights for
democracy."
It
wasn't until much later that the holiday took on the party-friendly
connotations for which it's known today. "The 1970s and '80s really is
when the U.S. beer companies began to kind of look for ways to target
the Spanish-speaking population," Alamillo says.
But,
despite the holiday's marketing-fueled transformation into a time for
drinking, it's unique origins can still be seen in the way it's
celebrated—or, rather, the way it's not. Alamillo, who was born in
Zacatecas, Mexico, and moved to America when he was 8 years old, says he
didn't learn about Cinco de Mayo until his American elementary-school
education.
"I
thought, 'Why would I hear about it in a classroom in the U.S., but my
parents and uncles never heard about it in their schooling in Mexico?'"
he says. "It's not a Mexican holiday, not an American holiday, but an
American-Mexican holiday."
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