Cinco De Mayo: Is it About Cerveza or Civil Rights?

Moosh Girl
Moosh Girl, Yahoo! Contributor Network
May 1, 2007 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."
On May 5, 1862, a group of about two thousand Mexicans kicked a bunch of French people's butts at the Battle of Puebla. This has become a Mexican national holiday called "Cinco de Mayo" in honor of that country's favorite condiment. You would think it would be called "Cinco de Salsa" or "Cinco de Guacamole" but you'd be so totally wrong. To celebrate this proud moment in Mexico's colorful history, everybody in North America (Mexican and otherwise) goes out and gets hammered on tequila and Zima and orange juice that's past its expiration date and whatever else happens to be lying around, and shouts inappropriate things to women and falls down and just generally makes idiots of themselves.

The French, on the other hand, celebrate this day by sitting around in cafes, smoking cigarettes and drinking lattes and talking trash about everybody in that nasally way they have that makes you want to pull their stupid berets so far down over their heads that they suffocate. The French are embarrassed that the Mexicans gave them a beating, and when they watch their tiny black and white televisions on May 5 and see all the people in America and Mexico getting drunk and being idiots, they will hang their heads in shame and cry, "Mon dieu! Voici la poisson de mon frere Raoul. Il y a quinze fleurs sur l'herbe! Le poo." It's a terrible thing to see a Frenchman cry.

Ironically (or maybe not -- I have a hard time with irony), it was only three years later on this same date that the 13th Constitutional Amendment was ratified to shorten the word "Constitutional" to something that is easier to type. No, I am only joking, and it's not even very funny. The truth is that it was ratified to abolish slavery in America. You would think that we Americans would take the time to learn our history and instead of celebrating a Mexican holiday we don't even know the reason for, we would instead leave that to the Mexicans (who are probably annoyed with us stealing their thunder all the time anyway) and celebrate the greatest triumph in civil rights this nation has ever known.

You would think that we would raise our glasses to the sky and go, "Woo hoo!" really loudly in honor of a day where the democracy and freedom we value so much were proven to be a tangible thing and not just a lofty ideal. Yes, you would think all of this. And then you would fall out of your chair laughing when you realized you were expecting Americans to know their own country's history. The average American's national history knowledge only goes back to Andy Warhol's soup cans. And Americans seem to think everything that's happened since then isn't worth knowing unless it has to do with pop culture. If someone wrote a book called All I Need To Know About the 20th Century In America I Learned From "Forrest Gump" And Various Oliver Stone Films it would be a bestseller.

Anyway, I think it would behoove all Americans to lobby Congress or the Senate or the President or Anheuser-Busch or whoever it is that makes up holidays (See? I don't know because I didn't pay attention in school either -- I was listening to Ace of Base on my walkman during history class) and make them create a new holiday on May 5th to celebrate the abolitionmentnessology of slavery. I'm not sure what we would call it. It should be up to the American people to decide what to call it. But let's not let DC vote, okay? They're the people who, when the name for their NBA team was up for a vote, almost went with "The Sea Dogs". "Sea dog" is another name for a seal, even though (as a friend of mine pointed out) it's an insult to seals because they came first in evolution so to be fair, dogs should be called "land seals". Either way, I don't know of any dogs or seals who can make a shot from the base line, much less dunk.

Happy Cinco de Mayo, y'all. Go ahead and have a drink for all your Mexican brothers who defeated the French. But please, don't forget to also have a drink for all your black brothers who defeated something much, much worse. Even worse than French people. And you know that has to be bad.

Published by Moosh Girl

Moosh Girl wants love, peace and happiness throughout the world. Or maybe she just wants to write. Grammar is king, the King is Elvis, Elvis is everywhere (according to Mojo Nixon), and in the words of Forr...   View profile

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28 Comments

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  • Michael Jackson 5/4/2008

    Dude, I am just a kid and I know more about cinco de mayo than you do, apparently. You're not funny.

  • Gloworks 5/2/2008

    I didn't LOL. I was intrigued that the same day, three years later, saw the abolition of slavery. I suppose this can be stretched into a view of racism in America, but I' half way through my case of Corona and I've run out of limes.

  • Ace 5/6/2007

    I think Mexicans don't even know thier own heritage

  • Lisa Andrews 5/6/2007

    Oops, that last comment was from me. I was logged in under my roommate's username.

  • Close Call 5/6/2007

    I'm cracking up right now! How could anyone think this article was at all serious or a statement of fact? If you actually READ it, not just skim it for words and phrases you might find offensive, you'd see that. As for if May 5th is the correct date for this, I was going on a "This Day In History" email I get every day. Lighten up, people.

  • Paul Shinkle 5/6/2007

    None of my Mexican friends have a clue about what this day is all about. Eleazar calls it "Gringo Get Drunk Day." Elida is pretty sure the Corona people made it up to sell beer during the holiday lull between opening day of baseball and Memorial Day. Ramon, a server, said "Who cares, I'm gonna make an assful of tips". All of them said this "If you want to celebrate something, celebrate Mexico's Independence Day." I ate pork, black bread and Bavarian beer, because I'm a kraut and that's how I celebrate everything.

  • Quito Washington 5/6/2007

    "The thirteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States was proposed to the legislatures of the several states by the Thirty-eighth United States Congress, on January 31, 1865. The amendment was declared, in a proclamation of Secretary of State William Henry Seward, dated December 18, 1865, to have been ratified by the legislatures of twenty-seven of the then thirty-six states."

    Where is the May 5th connection?

  • Jeanne Marie Kerns 5/6/2007

    Great write :-)

  • Quito Washington 5/6/2007

    And thinking about it, it was only referred to in passing in HS, not really brought out, but then in the HS and Uni I went to, more time was spent bashing Germany about the Holocaust than looking at the reasons, causes, and effects of slavery in the US...that was a "oh yeah, it happened, let's move on" kinda of thing

  • Quito 5/6/2007

    Great article, and yes, everyone can celebrate as they please, about what they please, but honestly, the fact that the 13th Amendment day is not celebrated is s tragic political shame since that act was one of the "change the course of the US" decisions....
    thanks for posting it
    Q

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