Cinco de Mayo: A Xicano activist in the making

It’s Cinco de Mayo everyone!

No not Mexico’s Independence Day, that would be September 16th, not even a national holiday in Mexico, but what has, in the US of A, turned into, so it seems, a sublime national day for for white people to lose their social filter, whether mouth or thought, and outwardly display their ignorance in an orgy of Frat-Sorori-hood drunkiness.

This is not the Cinco de Mayo that I relate, celebrate, or support. For those of you still in shock that in fact September 16th is Mexico’s Independence day, Cinco de Mayo is actually the day Mexican forces were victorious against the French in the Battle of Puebla in 1862.

As impressively wikipedia explains:

Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for “5th of May”) is a regional holiday in Mexico, primarily celebrated in the state of Puebla. It is not an obligatory federal holiday. The holiday commemorates an initial victory of Mexican forces led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. The date is observed in the United States and other locations around the world as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride.

Although the Mexican army was victorious over the French at Puebla, the victory only delayed the French advance on Mexico City; a year later, the French occupied Mexico. The French occupying forces placed Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico on the throne of Mexico. The French were eventually defeated and expelled in 1867. Maximilian was executed by President Benito Juarez, five years after the Battle of Puebla.

Despite the ignorance faced on a daily basis, the eye rolling, outward, internal, institutional racism, for many Chican@s/Xican@s it is a day of cultural pride, to share a sentiment of over coming and defeating the odds.

A Celebration of cultural heritage and pride. That is what I kept reminding myself as I sat outside in a wonderful paved veranda of Muchas Gracias (I wasn’t looking for authentic anything, I wanted some sort of “wrap” with vaguely familiar fillings,watered down pee-ko day gaiy-o and a side of ice-tea on one of the first days of Springy weather here in Eugene Oregon) in the middle of what, despite all its updates and face lifts, is a strip mall.

Sitting there eating my overstuffed burrito for super-size America, it was tasty, and eating my really crunchy yellow and blue corn chips with some pee-ko day gaiy-o I see “Mex-cellent, Mex-anagment, Mex-elicious….” Posted on the windows. I didn’t know if I shoul dbe mad, cry, laugh, grossed out, but it was a bit much.

I laughed, what else could I do.

It only reminded me that I too participate in Mex-ame (think Sesame) street, next to my fellow sister on Oriental Lane and I’m sure there is bound to be Africa-Land. It is only small niche through the lens of White Middle America, everything filtered and tailored to be US-friendly. Culture appropriated by consumerism and I just wanted a burrito, damn it.

 

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