Happy Cuatro de Mayo!

Plans for Seis de Mayo?

It’s pretty much all the same to me.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful, I’ve come to  understand the celebration, although it’s been a slow process. See, I was reared along the US-Mexico border – spent an important chunk of my childhood and adolescence in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. I went to school there and did all the things that kids there do in school and afterwards.

We never celebrated Cinco de Mayo, never.

We learned about it in class. We did reports and posters and dioramas of the Battle of Puebla, but there were no parades, no fiestas, no one took the day off.

In Puebla, where the celebrated battle occurred, it’s a big deal, and I’d expect it to be so. They have parades, and they have special festivities and re-enactments – but just there. I’ve never been to the Cinco de Mayo celebration in Puebla. When I was a school kid I marched in 16 de Septiembre parades, that’s a big deal all over Mexico. People here in the US confuse Cinco de Mayo with Mexico’s independence day. The 16th of September is Mexico’s independence celebration. Cinco de Mayo is an independence, of sorts, from the French but it’s not an equivalent to the Fourth of July.

And I marched as well in the 20 de Noviembre parades. No one does 20 de Noviembre over here.

20 de Noviembre is better.

November 20th commemorates Mexico’s revolution, a more appropriate celebration for the US given the southwest United States’ central role in all that occurred in Mexico in the early 1800’s. If you want to see a very good series of programs on the connection between Mexico’s revolution and Latinos in the US check out The Children of the Revolution. To me it makes more sense.

I was initially appalled by the beer fest’s that are organized around Cinco de Mayo; the massive concerts, the barrels of Budweiser. It sounded Mexican but it was completely foreign to me. It seemed fake and advantageous. And to a large extent I still feel that way.

It’s about culture?

But I understand it differently now.  I know now that there is a direct link between the US and the battle against the French in Puebla on the fifth of May in 1862. And I’ve come to see the Cinco de Mayo celebrations, with music and gorditas and beer, as celebrations of culture. That said, I’d like to see the beer companies sponsor more art exhibits and plays and literature festivals. But I wouldn’t make a bet on the likelihood of that happening.

So roll-out the mariachis, whoop it up, dance and do a grito. And on the sixth have some menudo to quell your cruda – you’ll need it.

In the mean time, here’s Stephen Colbert, pokin’ some fun.

Follow Victor Landa on Twitter: @vlanda