¿Que demonios es el cinco de Mayo?

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¿Que demonios es el cinco de Mayo?

Postby 52xMax » Mon May 05, 2014 4:56 pm

Relax, compadres. This article is (mostly) in English, so sip on your margaritas, dip your nachos on guacamole, and read on. You might learn something about my country, and have something to talk about to your gardener.

So, as most of you know by now, I am from Mexico. Not only that, but I still live in this country, and as someone who has lived right next to the border with the United States his whole life, I find most of the stereotypes and misconceptions about my country baffling, if not downright offensive. Now, this is not about cultural misappropriation or outrage at the establishment for turning us into a caricature, but rather the opposite.

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We are actually quite fond of this racist portrayal


The thing about Mexican idiosyncrasy is, we tend to take every situation, even grim things like death itself, with humor. But I'll take on the "Dia de Muertos" traditions on some other occasion.

This is why I felt inclined to make this post and talk about the most misunderstood of all Mexican traditions, a holiday known as "Cinco de Mayo" (which literally means "May the 5th") by Americans, and everyone else who gets their knowledge via popular culture. To us, the 5th of May is known as "Día de la Batalla de Puebla" (day of the battle of Puebla), but weirdly enough, it has also become sort of a tradition in late years to some of us to call it "Seen koh reh my ow" in our best "Gringo-At-A-Curios-Shop" accent, and we have fiestas in which we indulge into the same kind of behavior that American tourists have when they visit our resorts, which consists of wearing sombreros and sarapes, drinking tequila and listening to mariachi music. This has had the (predictable) consequence of preserving all those stereotypes on the eyes of tourists, thus perpetuating the cycle of misunderstanding.

I'm here to break those misunderstandings open just like a pinata.

So what the hell is "Cinco de Mayo"?


On to the battle of Puebla, then. Contrary to what some people think, this event had nothing to do with the war for Mexican independence, which ended 40 years before this battle took place. You might have also heard that this is more of a Mexican-American celebration within the United States, and this isn't the case. It's true that is much bigger a deal to Mexican communities in the US (both immigrants and Mexican-Americans born in the country, dating back to generations) but I'll get to that in a minute.

The first thing you should know about the battle of Puebla is that, as its hinted by the name, it was only one battle in a larger war. To be more precise, it was one battle we won, in a war that we lost.

See, after fighting for 11 years and gaining our independence from Spain in 1821, the years that followed were not exactly peaceful. You could say that the whole 19th Century was nothing but armed conflicts and political instability. We went through our first Emperor (yeah, that didn't last), over a few dozen presidential successions, and we lost about half our territory to the United States... yeah, that was a tough taco to swallow, but it's been over 150 years now and we've made up with our neighbors. I for one, love going to Disneyland, and I don't point at Mickey Mouse and say "that could've been me living at Sleeping Beauty's Castle".

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The war we were fighting that time was against the French. Concretely, it was the second French invasion when we were still in diapers as an autonomous country. The first one had happened just a few years before and it was called (I shit you not) the pastry war. That was only the rehearsal though, as the French occupied some of our most important ports in the East coast and then the UK intervened before things got worse. The second intervention started out because we were just coming out from yet another big war between the two major political forces in the country (we used to fight among ourselves almost as much as against outsiders back then) and our national vaults were bleeding money, so President Juarez decided it was in our best interest to stop paying the debt we owed to European Imperialist forces such as Spain, the UK, and France. In retrospect, that might not have been the best move, because the French, who were still set on getting some of the colonies had lost in America (i.e. all of them) and were just looking for an excuse, pretty much mobilized their fleet and troops into Mexican shores the minute Juarez finished his speech about not paying up.

French Emperor Napoleon III got very cocky, as the army he commanded had not lost a single battle for almost 50 years. So much so that, after the Brits and Spaniards thought better of it (once they realized the French's plan all along was a full on invasion rather than settling out the debt), doubled down and decided to team up with the conservative party (which had just lost the war against Juarez reformist party) to colonize Mexico and establish a puppet government. This is where some history revisionists claim that Napoleon had further plans to back up the Confederates on the American Civil War which had just broke out, but there's not enough evidence (only some speculation on the part of a few Mexican and American diplomats at the time) to say with certainty. Of course, Napoleon had crazy Bonaparte blood running through his veins, so it is entirely possible.

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Sure, that's the facial hair of a mad monarch, but he didn't look quite as dashing on top of a horse as his uncle.


After a few crushing battles for the Mexican army that resulted in the French taking the ports of Veracruz and Orizaba, it looked like the French would walk straight into Mexico City, and this is where this single battle turned out to be so significant. The city of Puebla was heavily fortified, and General Zaragoza (who had just resigned as Secretary of Defense in order to be on the battlefield) was sent to defend it. Now, the Napoleonic army was one of the most disciplined in the world, they were well supplied, heavily armed, and almost doubled in size the regiment commanded by Zaragoza.

As for the particulars of the battle, I'm not an expert on these things, so rather than being ridiculously inaccurate, I'll just say that the Mexicans took advantage of every single thing they could exploit, and combined with wit, bravery, weather conditions and luck, managed to drive off the invaders, who retreated to the ports they had seized previously.

Sadly, things didn't go as smoothly after that for us, and we lost almost all the significant battles after that, but the plans of invasion were delayed for more than a year and after many reinforcements were sent from France. Maybe things would've turned out different if General Ignacio Zaragoza (who is also my (real) namesake) had not contracted typhoid fever and died just a few months after the battle of Puebla. Regardless, the victory was very symbolic to the resistance during exile, and we still think of Zaragoza as a national hero. We even put him in our money.

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You were the chosen one!


The French ruling didn't last long, as you can see. Otherwise you would be munching a Funyuns Fous Croissant from Grenouille Cloche while reading this article, and I'd be wearing a beret instead of a sombrero.

Juarez government was never entirely defeated, they retreated towards the border, to the city of El Paso, Mexico, which was later renamed as (you guessed it) ciudad Juarez. The French, with the help of Mexican conservative diplomats who wanted to restore the aristocrat class, established the second Mexican Empire, and Austrian Prince Maximilian of the House Habsburg was declared as the new Emperor, but they never seized full control of the country, and many governments (including the Americans. Juarez and Lincoln were basically BFFs) refused to recognize his authority. And the sad thing is that, as far as emperors go, Maxie (not my namesake. I took my username from a CD-ROM drive. I've told that story before) wasn't really that bad. He had fairly progressive ideas, which might have been what caused his ultimate downfall, given that the French and the Mexican aristocrats wanted the exact opposite. The reformists had fought a war which was all about establishing a Constitution with human rights, which also empowered people of the lower classes, so they didn't appreciate these efforts to make our country into an empire, no matter how modern it was. So when they finally regained power... well, let's just say that the Emperor's new clothes consisted on a solid coat of led.

Here with his wife, Empress Charlotte, who went mad (understandably) shortly after her husband was killed.
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Our previous Emperor Iturbide? yeah, we shot that guy too.
Us Mexicans really don't take too kindly to royalty.


So, to make things short (isn't a little late for that?) the battle of Puebla, which happened on May 5th, 1862, was significant not to the war itself, but as a symbol of Mexican resilience and heroism. It is celebrated in the whole country, though, strictly speaking, is not an official holiday (except for schools and banks and government offices because "we don't care that the rest of the country has to work, our union says we don't have to and you can suck it") but it is commemorated all over, especially in the city of Puebla itself, where they even make re-enactments of the battle every year.

As to how the holiday got its reputation as Mexico's most important celebration, well, that's hard to pinpoint. It was likely some misunderstanding on the part of white Americans (as always) for our biggest holiday happens during September (the Mexican Independence) and the second largest is on November (Mexican Revolution). Some people claim that "Seen koh reh my ow" has been observed in the United States back when the battle took place (right in the middle of the American Civil War) as a way to show solidarity from the Mexicans who remained in the territories we lost to the USA and became US citizens. Some others think it was the immigrants who have been crossing the border to trim your trees, grow your food and sweep your floors who adopted the tradition as a way to remember that even in foreign soil and with odds against them they can still prevail. The truth is... well, probably a combination of both. As for how it became so popular in the US, so much that even South and Central Americans celebrate it, I'm thinking it's because you don't really need many excuses to chill and eat delicious Mexican food. Hopefully not that stuff from Taco Bell.

Now if you excuse me, I've been writing this for a while, so I'm retreating to take my siesta.

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Feliz Cinco de Mayo, ese.
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Re: ¿Que demonios es el cinco de Mayo?

Postby sunglasses » Mon May 05, 2014 5:12 pm

You never need excuses to eat delicious Mexican food. If you're ever up in my area, there is only once acceptable place to eat: Montezuma's. Seriously their salsa is amazing and homemade and so damn good. I also love the spinach quesadilla, the chile colorado, their chimichangas, carnitas, the tacos de chorizo con papa and what were we talking about?

Oh yeah, fuck guacamole. I hate that shit.

Also, this was interesting, Max. I think the truth is, I'm we are always looking for excuses to drink.
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Re: ¿Que demonios es el cinco de Mayo?

Postby LaoWai » Fri May 09, 2014 7:55 am

Cinco de Mayo is the perfect excuse to eat delicious food. I think every Tex-Mex place I know is required to do a buffet, and at least one serves bottomless cups of atole as the standard drink. This would be the normal reason why I hear the sentence, "Sir, we do serve other drinks you might enjoy, and there is other food on the buffet than just the tamales and salsa roja," about once a year.
At that point, I usually make a trip for some tacos, and when the staff see how much guacamole, sour cream, and pico de gallo I can fit into three tacos, they're very happy to tell me that a new batch of tamales will be up soon. (Yeah, for me, tacos are one of those foods that I think of primarily as a sauce-delivery system.)
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