Cinco de Mayo is a holiday that purportedly celebrates the victory of a ragtag band of 4,000 Mexicans fighters over 8,000 French soldiers on May 5, 1862.
But this historic feat seems lost on most people of Mexican heritage in the United States. After all, they mark the occasion by celebrating their culture much in the same drunken and carousing way people of Irish heritage celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.
Cinco de Mayo tops St. Patrick’s Day, Super Bowl Sunday with U.S. beer drinkers.
(Washington Times, May 4, 2015)
Alas, the anti-immigrant presidency of Donald J. Trump belittled and overshadowed all we celebrate about Mexican-American culture. In fact, thanks to his xenophobic fulminations, the immigration that has always been America’s strength now conjures up images of poor, menacing Mexicans swarming across the southern border.
Meanwhile, the government’s own records show that, for the first time since the Great Depression, more Mexicans are leaving the United States voluntarily these days than entering illegally. The poor, huddled masses at the border yearning to breath free are mostly from the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
But, before they all leave, you might want to join our Mexican-American friends in celebrating their culture. And there’s no better way to do that than to celebrate the things we all love about Mexico: tequila, Acapulco, tequila, Chichen Itza, tequila, los mariachis, tequila, Diego Rivera, tequila, Cancun, tequila, fajitas, and much more.