On the relevance of Cinco de Mayo in Mexican history

photo credit: Benimoto

Despite the fact that I keep little to no contact with the Mexican community in Vancouver, I feel as Mexican as a chile relleno. Thus, it always gives me a little bit of a weird feeling when people say “Happy Cinco de Mayo“, particularly in Anglosaxon North America (it never happened to me in Europe, and it certainly never happened in France!) Most of the time, I think, my knee-jerk reaction comes from the fact that I think that some anglosaxon North Americans think that Cinco de Mayo is (incorrectly) Mexico’s Independence Day. Which is not the truth, as I have written before, September 15th is Mexico’s Independence Day (when it finally broke free from the shackles of Spaniard ruling). When I started seeing a couple of tweets (by Mark Busse and Chuck Leduc Diaz) when they mentioned the Battle of Puebla (which pitted Mexican vs French armies, and against-all-odds, Mexico won), I came to realize that perhaps Cinco de Mayo IS more relevant in Mexican history than I’ve given it credit for in the past. It is true, in Mexico, other dates are celebrated much more (like November 20th, the day of our Mexican flag, or even May 1st, which is a statutory holiday, in celebration of International Work(er) Day). When I was growing up, we sometimes would get May 5th as a holiday, but it is not statutory.

I think that for ex-patriates from Mexico, and for Mexican-Canadians and Mexican-Americans, Cinco de Mayo is probably primarily a celebration of their Mexican heritage. For me, Cinco de Mayo has little relevance, but come to think about it, it’s kind of nice to see the community I am surrounded by to celebrate a piece of Mexican history. That’s one of the great things about living in a multicultural city like Vancouver.