What is Cinco de Mayo? Here’s why we celebrate May 5 and what the holiday means
Cinco de Mayo #CincodeMayo
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It’s May, which means it’s time for one of the United States’ most misunderstood holidays: Cinco de Mayo. But at least there will be great food and drink to make the misunderstanding more tolerable.
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The name in Spanish means “May 5.” This year’s falls on Wednesday, while next year’s will be on a Thursday. Cinco de Mayo 2023 is one of the “holy grails,” falling on a Friday — when most people don’t need to work the next day. Leap Year Day in 2024 means that year’s holiday jumps straight to Sunday.
What is Cinco de Mayo?
First of all, it’s not Mexico’s Independence Day, which is actually celebrated Sept. 16. Cinco de Mayo instead commemorates the Mexican army’s victory over Napoleon III’s French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.
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Napoleon III & the Battle of Puebla
Not the famous one from “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” He had been dead about 40 years by this point. This was the nephew of the famous Napoleon Bonaparte (aka Napoleon I). Mexico had borrowed a lot of money from European countries over the preceding years, and France came to collect and wasn’t willing to talk it out.
How is Cinco de Mayo celebrated?
Oddly — or not, considering Americans’ fondness for claiming other countries’ holidays as a reason to drink and party — Cinco de Mayo is celebrated much more in the United States than it is in Mexico. In Mexico, it’s not even a federal holiday, and most of the celebratory parades and events are limited to the state of Puebla.
In the United States, Cinco de Mayo is usually marked with parades and celebrations of Mexican culture, culminating with the consumption of lots of Mexican food and margaritas.
And as much as you think it would look “cute” or “funny,” don’t wear a sombrero.
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But most non-Mexican Americans have “no idea” about the day’s history, Carlos Tortolero, president of the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, told USA TODAY Network in 2014.
“If you went to any bar tonight and said, ‘What’s this day about?’, they would be clueless, and you can’t blame the alcohol consumption either,” Tortolero said.
In the 1960s, the holiday was adopted in cities with large Hispanic populations, starting with the west coast and moving inward over the years, as a celebration of Mexican culture.
Activists also commemorated it as a metaphor for all indigenous people triumphing over arriving colonists.
The holiday was then pushed into the holiday big leagues in the ’80s once the marketing departments of Anheiser-Busch and Miller Brewing got behind it.
Contact IndyStar digital producer Channing King at 317-444-8073 or channing.king@indystar.com. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter: @ChanningKing.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: What is Cinco de Mayo? Here’s why we celebrate May 5 and what the holiday means