Dancers from Jalisco, Mexico, perform during Cinco de Mayo celebrations in Portland, Ore. in 2015. Don Ryan/Associated Press, file
The true meaning of Cinco de Mayo – a holiday best known as an excuse to drink margaritas, eat tacos and celebrate Mexican Independence Day – couldn’t be farther from the stereotypes.
It’s actually a celebration of a Mexican military victory over the French.
As the legend goes, upon hearing the news of the victory, Mexican American mineral miners in Columbia, Calif., fired gunshots into the air, which some historians cite as the first Cinco de Mayo celebration. Since then, Mexican Americans have used the day as an opportunity to honor their ethnic pride, said Alexander Aviña, associate professor of Latin American history at Arizona State University.
“To this day, we see the celebration of Cinco de Mayo occur in a much more widespread fashion in the U.S. than we even see in Mexico,” Aviña said.
WHAT ARE THE ORIGINS OF CINCO DE MAYO?
First of all, Cinco de Mayo has nothing to do with Mexican Independence Day, which is celebrated on Sept. 16.
Instead, it refers to a famous military victory when an ill-equipped, ill-armed, poor Mexican army was able to fight off a superior French army on the outskirts of the city of Puebla on May 5, 1862.
Mexico had gone through a three-year civil war and its president, Benito Juárez, decided to suspend repayment of loans to Britain, Spain and France. (Mexico owed a total of about 80 million pesos or $4 million using today’s exchange rates, according to the Mexican government.)
Napoleon III, the leader of France at the time, wanted to create a French Empire in Latin America and decided to start in Mexico. He sent in 8,000 to 10,000 troops as part of the effort, said Aviña.
But as the French troops tried to reach Mexico City they encountered the ill-equipped Mexican unit stationed in Puebla. Mexico won the battle but would ultimately live under French rule for years.
WHY DOES THE HOLIDAY APPEAR MORE POPULAR IN U.S. THAN MEXICO?
For Mexican American communities, particularly in the West and Southwest, the holiday is not just about a military victory. It’s also a chance to celebrate Mexican culture and identity.
“The holiday wasn’t created in Mexico, it was created in the United States by Latinos living in the United States,” said David Hayes-Bautista, a professor of Latino health at UCLA and author of “El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition.”
Activists in the Chicano Movement, a social and political movement in the 1960s and early 1970s, brought attention to the holiday which wasn’t being widely celebrated at the time, Chicano studies scholar Ruben A. Arellano wrote in The Washington Post in 2022.
“Activists revived the dormant holiday to reconnect with the Mexican homeland of their forebears,” Arellano wrote. “Chicano activists chose Cinco de Mayo because they viewed their struggle against the systemic racism they faced in the United States in the same light.”
In Mexico, Cinco de Mayo is not celebrated anywhere near to the extent that it is in America, and it’s not a national holiday. Larger celebrations take place in the city of Puebla, which hosts a parade including a reenactment of the battle, but they are not widespread.
As awareness of the holiday has grown over the last few decades, so has the marketing around it.
“Companies really strived to turn this day into a commercial opportunity, and they’ve succeeded,” Aviña said. “Now, it’s gone mainstream.”
WHAT ARE SOME OF WAYS CINCO DE MAYO WILL BE CELEBRATED in 2025?
In Los Angeles, the Cinco de Mayo fiesta is celebrated with traditional Mexican music including mariachis and marimbas. In years past, they’ve also hosted a car show featuring lowriders, a style of customized cars popular with Mexican Americans.
Dallas hosts its own festival with live music and food. Denver celebrates with chihuahua races and a taco-eating contest.
“We’re going to have our own big celebrations here next week, but people don’t know why we’re celebrating. And that is the irony,” Hayes-Bautista said.
“A number of Latinos have turned their back on the holiday, saying it was made up by corporations to sell goods and they purposefully do not celebrate it.”
Food is also a big component of many celebrations. Over the years, The Post’s Voraciously has offered several recipe options, including for chiles rellenos and molletes, as well as festive cocktails and food pairings.
“Despite being associated with an excuse to drink to excess and wear vaguely Mexican (and often offensive) garb, we like to mark the day as an opportunity to enjoy the classic Mexican flavors and foods,” Kari Sonde, an editorial aide for Food, wrote in 2019.
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