Editor: The following is an excerpt from Brent Beltran’s former weekly column Desde Logan at the San Diego Free Press in 2013. What follows is worth repeating as Gringos typically are kept in the dark about the history of a people a few dozen miles away.
By Brent E. Beltrán
Cinco de Mayo commemorates El Día de la Batalla de Puebla (The Day of the Battle of Puebla) where in 1862 a ragtag Mexican army lead by General Ignacio Zaragoza defeated a much superior and better equipped force of the French army. Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day. It’s not even a significant holiday in Mexico except in the state of Puebla where the battle took place.
After the great liberal Mexican president Benito Juarez decided to stop paying Mexico’s foreign debt for two years to help it’s near bankrupt national treasury France’s Napoleon III, pissed off by this move, decided to invade and build up it’s empire.
At the Mexican forts of Loreto and Guadalupe in Puebla state an 8,000 soldier strong French army, the best army in the world at the time, attacked the ill equipped Mexican army that numbered around 4,000. Somehow the Mexican army crushed it’s much larger counterpart giving the Mexican nation a huge morale boost.
Unfortunately, the victory did not last very long because within a year Napoleon’s 30,000 strong invading military defeated the entire Mexican army. This sent the Juarez government into hiding. Napoleon then installed Emperor Maximilian I to rule over Mexico.
But that only lasted from 1864-1867 as the remaining Mexican forces, with financial help from America once their Civil War was over, conducted a campaign of guerrilla warfare that eventually unseated, captured and executed the wanna be emperor and his turncoat Mexican generals. On June 5, 1867 President Benito Juarez returned to Mexico City like a rock star.
The victory at Puebla has been celebrated in California since 1863 but really came into prominence in the 1940’s. It wasn’t until the 1950’s and 1960’s that Cinco de Mayo started crossing the US as Chicanos looked for a holiday to celebrate as their own. Defeating the invading European colonizers was reason enough.
It really took off in the 1980’s as corporations, especially beer companies, sought ways to sell their products to the burgeoning Mexican American community. Somehow, at some point, Cinco de Mayo started getting confused with Mexican Independence Day which is September 16 and celebrates the Mexican nation’s independence from Spain.
Cinco de Mayo is a relatively insignificant event in the annals of Mexican history. Día de la Independencia is much more important. So is Día de la Revolución Mexicana, November 20, which commemorates the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. Yet somehow Cinco de Mayo has taken hold north of the Mexican border but not south.
Perhaps it’s easier for Americans to digest Mexican Americans celebrating an unimportant battle than it is to see us celebrating our independence or a revolution that was pretty much socialist in nature.
Regardless, Cinco de Mayo continues to be celebrated, though not quite honored, mostly by non-Mexican Americans and drunk college students throughout the United States. Like St. Patrick’s Day it is just another excuse for people to party and put more money into the coffers of alcohol companies. Hopefully, someday it will truly be honored and those that sacrificed their lives on behalf of the Mexican nation will earn the dignity they deserve.
Thank you to the author for the history. Could he please more fully explain his comment:
“Perhaps it’s easier for Americans to digest Mexican Americans celebrating an unimportant battle than it is to see us celebrating our independence or a revolution that was pretty much socialist in nature.”
Thank you,
/s/ Chris Kennedy
Seems pretty clear to me, what needs explaining?
What Geoff said. What’s unclear?
Well, the thrust of the article seems to be that May 5 is not Mexican Independence Day, yet people confuse it with Mexican Independence. So, why the “easier to digest” comment?
/s/ Chris Kennedy
The editor lost all credulity when they used the word “Gringo” under the photo in their description of this article.
“Gringo” is a slang term, primarily used in Spanish-speaking regions, that refers to a foreigner, especially one of English or American origin. It’s a DEROGATORY term, so using it might be seen as insensitive.
Well, John, I’m the editor — and you can’t be serious. The terms “gringo” and “gringa” have been so often used by just about everybody, that they don’t have the same tint that you now refer to. You are being so shamelessly ultra sensitive. We live in a Spanish speaking part of the world, dude! And it doesn’t have the derogatory nature that the term used to have. Get with it, join the modern world.
Maybe you aren’t meaning what it appears to be on the surface. The meaning of CREDULITY is readiness or willingness to believe especially on slight or uncertain evidence. And for me as editor to “lose all credulity” means I’ve lost the readiness to believe … etc, which is not I think what you meant to say. But I digress — there are more important issues to deal with.
(And BTW, for you to try to say the SAVE act is a good thing means you haven’t read our current article or the previous one. Not to mention undermining all your previous comments that have made sense, usually. )
And you are correct, I meant lost all credibility, vs credulity. My mistake.
An easy way get the difference, for people like me, is to keep it simple.
“Credibility means believability; credulity means gullibility.”
Not as detailed as Editor dude’s definition, but not hard to remember.
Gringo, gringo, gringo. You’re a gringo, John, get used to it. I also think it helps us gringos to understand our bias and prejudice.
Frank, I am serious and at least you didn’t call me Shirly. If you can not see that the word “Gringo” used in the context it was used in, is mildly offensive, I do not know what to tell you.
Did a little research and found this bit that explains it well.
“Is the term derogatory? There is a persistent rumor that the term gringo is pejorative, and, in some cases, it is. When used in a sentence such as, “fast food is a gringo invention,” the word can imply a certain low grade from the United States, which is generally disrespected in Mexico. However, in the great majority of cases, the word gringo is simply a descriptor, much easier on the tongue than the cumbersome official term estadounidense (U.S. citizen). As you’ll quickly learn, many expatriates freely refer to themselves as gringos, and Mexicans use it without any implied offense.”
Thanks Geoff. I guess it is just a preference. Just like other derogatory slurs for for other nationalities are a preference to some.
You continue to miss the point. It’s not derogatory!!! It’s not an ethnic slur, which is what you suggest. (Get over it, my god dude!)
I’ll get over it Limey.
What Frank said.
Brent was being kind. He could have used the word- “Babosos” .
Well, I’ve heard said, it takes a Baboso to know one.