Cinco de Mayo.

The mother of all misunderstood, misquoted, misinterpreted and maligned of holidays.

It’s bad enough that American suds sellers hijacked the hell out of the “holiday,” now we’re even having to re-educate some of our own Chiacna/o/Latina/o masses thanks in part to our obscured Eurocentric form of education.

In the beginning, Cinco was utilized by La Raza living here, to remind Pocholandia of its roots and notable historical events south of the Rio Grande.

Research early Cinco de Mayo and you’ll discover its history reveals that celebration of the day in Mexican-American communities in California were among the first to recognize the day as these communities used the day to honor their homeland and heritage in addition to the battle of Puebla.

I myself recall spending many hours in our town’s plazita, a great replica of authentic plazas in the Mother Country, which was but a few miles from our Texas barrio. On that special day, classes were not let out early nor did we spend any academic time discussing Cinco, after all “we lived in America!”

However, at the celebration, complete with speeches (some by my maternal grandfather, uncles or my own dad), a brass band and lots of Tex-Mex food, raspas, candied apples and other goodies in puestos placed around our plaza, we managed to learn some Mexican and American history previously unheard by most of us youngsters.

It was there, and not in our schools we heard the names of Gen. Zaragoza, Benito Juarez and a host of others. In our schools, even a sliver of the Spanish language would merit a spanking. Those of us who were more inquisitive would go home and start asking our elders about the personalities we heard being honored at the plaza.

“Remember, drinking tequila, eating tacos, and wearing sombreros do not commemorate our Mexican culture,” Apa Grande would tell us. “On the contrary, such antics sometimes offend, marginalize or isolate some of our amigos.”

What a difference a few decades make, today, even the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of some California high school students who were ordered to remove or hide shirts showing the U.S. flag.

Several white students at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill (near San José), wore U.S. Flag shirts during a Cinco celebration and administrators feared that the shirts would cause an altercation between the white students and Chicano/Latino students who viewed the flaunting of the flag as a hostile gesture.

We’ll assume that neither the administrators nor any of the history, Spanish, etc. teachers at that school knew beans about Cinco. Nor any of its incredible side-stories. But wait, we can’t really blame the educators because it proves that none (like zero) of the colleges or universities they themselves attended offered any history course that touched on the first Cinco and the consequences had the outcome (Mexican army defeating the French) been different, (i.e., liike the Confederates receiving all kinds of French assistance to topple Lincoln’s Union.)

Meanwhile, at university campuses across the fruited plain, officials there continue to stumble over diversity issues as Chicana/o students voice disagreement with campuses featuring tacos and tequila while wearing large Mexican sombreros. Such clumsy approaches by groups claiming to want to become seriously involved with other parties celebrating with a more historical theme are still the norm this semester, say students at various California schools.

“During our MEChA state conference,” said CSU Sacramento senior, Alejandra Garcia.”We asked how other schools planned to celebrate Cinco and we heard remarks of how ridiculous some the the ‘celebrations’ had been across our state last year.”
Some of which included fraternities and sororities staging Mexican-theme parties that called for specific attire (Mexican hats, serapes, etc.) to be worn to the gatherings.

“Seems that many students, including some with Spanish surnames, have really bought the idea that Cinco is nothing more than a special day to get drunk!” said Garcia. “If you look around, supermarkets, drug stores and other places, the beer companies have gone all out to push their products, some of the displays resemble a Super Bowl beer advertising blitz!”

Why is the celebration of Cinco de Mayo such a classic conundrum? At this point in time, it reeks of ignorance on the part of society. Not to mention the academic absurdity of our lack of studying the history of our neighboring countries, specifically, Mexico, to whom all this land once belonged. As students we are hammered with assignments detailing the history of European and Asian empires. Knowledge is great and gratifying, but if we know nada about the land south of us, does that make us Cinco Challenged?

On June 7, 2005, a concurrent, non-binding resolution recognizing the historical significance of the day, was recorded by the House of Representatives, in The Congressional Record.

If you were to ask your area congressperson about this gesture, chances are that s/he would give you the same hollow stare you would get from a beer salesperson if asked the same question.