Episode 7: Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

On a dark, rainy Monday afternoon on May 5th, 1862, Mexican soldiers led by General Ignacio Zaragoza, and bolstered by Indigenous fighters from Xochiapulco, sierra de Tetela, and other Nawa communities, defeated the French army of Napolean III at the Battle of Puebla. Today, Cinco de Mayo, the day of this battle, is generally viewed as a “drinking Holiday” by its American participants. Something that is welcome with open arms by brewing companies who capitalize on the day by encouraging white people to don sombreros, serapes, and tacky fake mustaches as they revel in their drunken debauchery. By the way, if this Is you – knock it off. Your embarrassing yourself.

But, what is the actual history of Cinco de Mayo, what importance does it hold for Chicana/Chicano/Chicanx communities, and most importantly why is it celebrated in the United States?

Well dear listener, If you have ever asked yourself any of those questions, you're in luck. Because on today's episode we explore:

Cinco De Mayo: Why We Celebrate

Your hosts:

Kurly Tlapoyawa is an archaeologist, ethnohistorian, and filmmaker. His research covers Mesoamerica, the American Southwest, and the historical connections between the two regions. He is the author of numerous books and has presented lectures at the University of New Mexico, Yale University, San Diego State University, and numerous others. He is currently a professor of Chicano Studies at the Colegio Chicano del Pueblo, a free online educational institution.
@kurlytlapoyawa

Ruben Arellano Tlakatekatl is a scholar, activist, and professor of history. His research explores Chicana/Chicano indigeneity, Mexican indigenist nationalism, and Coahuiltecan identity resurgence. Other areas of research include Aztlan (US Southwest), Anawak (Mesoamerica), and Native North America. He has presented and published widely on these topics and has taught courses at various institutions. He currently teaches history at Dallas College – Mountain View Campus.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:02

Excuse me.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

Yamino Timen and welcome to Tales from Mastlandis, the show where we explore Mesoamerican pseudo history, new age nonsense, and other stories of adventure. We are your hosts, Curly Tlapoyawa and Ruben Ariano Tla Cataka. On a dark, rainy Monday afternoon on May 5th, 1862, Mexican soldiers led by General Ignacio Zaragoza and bolstered by indigenous fighters from Chochiapulco and the Sierra de Tetela, as well as other smaller Nahua communities, defeated the French army of Napoleon III at the Battle of Puebla. Today, Cinco de Mayo, the day of this battle, is generally viewed as a quote unquote drinking holiday by its American participants, something that is welcomed with open arms by brewing companies who capitalize on the day by encouraging white people to don sombreros, serapes, and tacky fake mustaches as they revel in their drunken debauchery. And by the way, if this is you, knock it off. You're embarrassing yourself. But what is the actual history of Cinco de Mayo? What importance does it hold for Chicana, Chicano, Chicanex communities, and most importantly, why is it celebrated in the United States? Well, dear listener, if you've ever asked yourself any of those questions, you're in luck. Because on today's episode, we explore Cinco de Mayo. Why we celebrate.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Year in and year out, the Mexican-American holiday Cinco de Mayo spurs countless discussions and commentaries from well-meaning folks who want to set the record straight on what the celebration is and is not about. I too have delved into this conversation in the past, but stopped long ago because I grew tired of constantly repeating the same thing year after year. My approach to the topic had been one of trying to answer a specific underlying question about the celebration itself. Why do Mexican Americans celebrate this holiday in the United States more so than even Mexican nationals do? I used to think that Mexican Americans celebrate the holiday in the US because General Ignacio Zaragoza was a native Tejano. Zaragoza was born in La Bahía del Espíritu Santo Tejas back when it was still part of Mexico. La Bahía is now known as Goliath. The way I saw it, since the hero of that victory had been one of our very own Tejanos, in my mind it was logical to say that Zaragoza was the reason for the season, to borrow a phrase. After many years of promoting this idea, I now realize that the Zaragoza thesis is only part of the story of this holiday. In the book El Cinco de Mayo and American Tradition published in 2012, David Hayes Bautista sets out to precisely answer the question of why Mexican Americans celebrate 5 de mayo in the United States. In the process, he reveals that the tradition can be traced to 19th century ethnic Mexican organizations called Juntas Patrióticas Mexicanas, in other words, Mexican Patriotic Assemblies. These assemblies started springing up throughout the former Mexican North, the southwestern U.S., sometime after the US-Mexico War of 1846 to 1848. Hayes Bautista focuses on California in the 1860s and finds that the state had at least 129 Juntas Patrióticas Mexicanas by the end of that century. He also notes that assemblies were found in such unlikely places as far north as the state of Oregon and beyond. It's possible that these assemblies are some of the first Mexican-American networks of a political nature. Their purpose was not just to celebrate the Battle of Puebla, but to reinforce the bicultural nature of the Spanish-speaking peoples of the United States while celebrating their newfound Americanness. They valued the democratic ideals of their country, despite bearing the brunt of Anglo-violence, racism, aggression, and land dispossession. Out of this shared experience, the Californios, Mexican immigrants, and other Central and South Americans from this emergent community felt a common bond and began to identify as Hispanoamericanos. This new community rallied around the Mexican cause for freedom because they worried that if it fell to the French, it could trigger a domino effect across the rest of the Americas. The American Civil War was also cause for worry to the Hispanoamericano community. Just as Mexico was in peril of becoming recolonized by a European superpower, the French, so too was the United States in danger of being dismembered from within. As denizens of a free state, Californios feared that the Confederate States of America would come for them next. Mexico had abolished slavery when it became an independent nation in 1821, so the very idea of living in a slave society was anathema to their very core. Meanwhile, in Mexico, the Battle of Puebla that occurred on May 5, 1862, was a highlight in what seemed a doomed struggle to keep that nation free and independent. Under Napoleon III, the French had invaded Mexico with the pretense of collecting the debt. The English, Spanish, and French had all loaned money to Mexican monarchist separatists who were opposed to Benito Juarez and his Republican liberal ideas of government. When Juarez successfully put down the rebellion, the separatists fled and took the leftover money from the loans with them. After Juarez announced a two-year delay in repayment, France came to collect, but it had ulterior motives. Spain and England, who were also owed money, refused to join Napoleon's imperial machinations. As Hays Bautista shows, the very first public Cinco de Mayo celebrations occurred not in Mexico, but throughout California. The news had spread throughout Spanish-language newspapers to the anxious Hispanoamericanos who were waiting to hear some good news from Mexico. On the home front, things were dispiriting and deeply concerning as the Confederate States of America gained the upper hand early in the Civil War, so the victory against the French was a cause for rejoice. By May 27th, just weeks after the battle, Spanish-speaking communities in California were already holding public celebrations to commemorate the victory over the French and Napoleon III. These celebrations would continue throughout the remainder of the French occupation and beyond. For instance, in 1864, as the Civil War raged on, Antonio Mancillas, editor of San Francisco's La Voz de Mexico, set out to convince his readers that Cinco de Mayo was worth remembering because of its historical significance.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

On that very same day, the local Junta Patriotica of the gold mining town of Sonora in Tulun County gathered to witness the raising of the Mexican flag amid enthusiastic cheers, after which Eugenio Cárdenas made an eloquent speech, which he began by acknowledging his audience's patriotism, the junta's role in organizing the proceedings. That night, the junta sponsored a dance in the Greenwood Theater, which had been decorated with a portrait of the late General Ignacio Zaragoza, the hero of Puebla.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

The celebration carried on through the night with speakers delivering speeches and young women reciting poetry and singing the Mexican national anthem. These were solemn events reminiscent of those held throughout Mexico during the Fiestas Patrias, and not like the boisterous and festive fandangos that were ubiquitous at the time. The festivities not only celebrated the battle, they also honored the memory of General Zaragoza, who had died months after the battle at Puebla from typhoid fever. These patriotic organizations went to great lengths in commemorating Cinco de Mayo because it served as a beacon of hope against the imperialist forces that were intent in reinstating a European monarchy in the Americas. Looking at this holiday in the context of the American Civil War and Mexico's internal conflict with monarchists, Hais Bautista's broader point is that this network functioned to support the defense of freedom and democracy in both the United States and Mexico. So what does all this have anything to do with our current celebrations? The US-Mexico War was still a recent memory to the broader ethnic Mexican community, and many still resented the gringo aggression that had led to the major loss of land about half of Mexico's territory. Despite that, the simultaneous conflicts that were tearing both countries apart, the Confederacy in the US and the French invasion of Mexico, led migrants and immigrants to notice a common sense of freedom against the forces of tyranny between the two countries. Additionally, by the 1860s, the first US-born Hispanoamericanos were coming of age during both conflicts, and the same crises of identity that conflicted later generations of Chicanas and Chicanos, Mexicanas, Mexicanos, and other brown folks were already present at that time. The Juntas Patrioticas Mexicanas were inspired further by Benito Juarez himself who declared Cinco de Mayo a national holiday. And the celebrations continued until the close of the 19th century. By the turn of the 20th century, the last of the Juntas Patrioticas had disappeared, but the memory of these celebrations lived on. With the continued influx of Mexican immigrants came new ideas and new celebrations, and Die Seis de September slowly gained prominence in the barrios to celebrate Lo Mexicano, in other words, Mexicanus, and also the overthrow of Porfirio Diaz. In time, the Decise celebration became the most prominent ethnic Mexican celebration in the Southwest. This still does not fully explain why the 5th of May gained prominence, but it does show the way that communities changed their values and traditions over time. The contemporary iteration of the Cinco de Mayo celebrations date to the Chigana movement era of the late 1960s and 1970s, when political activism and cultural renaissance of Mexican traditions sparked the revival of the dormant holiday.

SPEAKER_03 11:07

In an article entitled The Real Meaning of Cinco de Mayo, published in 2013 by the scholar Antonio Sanchez, he posits that it was not until the late 1960s that Chicano civil rights activists on college campuses purposely identified and adopted the Battle of Puebla and May 5th as their day to celebrate this Mexican victory in the United States. It was celebrated predominantly in the Southwest United States and California, and it was here where the activist community lifted this date out of the Chicano Barrios and onto Main Street. College campuses for the first time heard the cries of Viva La Rasa, Viva Cinco de Mayo. That cry was a bold statement of historical and cultural self-determination, cultural allegiance with Mexico, and in defiant recognition of the accomplishments of the capable mestizo people of Astlan, Mexico's land lost in 1848. It was an affirmation of the cultural and social solidarity of the Mexican American community with Mexico's past.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Sanchez explains that Cinco de Mayo became significant for Chicanos and Chicano activists because they viewed their struggle in the same light as that of the poor and ill-equipped makeshift Mexican army that defeated what was then a global superpower. He posits that this idea of quote unquote triumph in the face of overwhelming odds and adversity resonated with young Chicanos and Chicanos.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

The Chicano activist movement in the 1960s and 70s used this date to inspire a community whose contribution and history had been marginalized, underrecognized, and deliberately overlooked. Together, they found a new strength, and as an underdog community, adopted this day to celebrate a truly uniting sense of shared identity.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Not until the 1980s, after the Chicano movement had dissipated, did the holiday become corporatized and commercialized. The radical politics of the 60s and 70s gave way to moderate and accommodationist politics. The Hispanic age had arrived. Corporations that Chicanos and Chicanos had previously boycotted saw the marketing potential and made inroads into the community through promises of philanthropy and grants. One such business sector was the alcohol industry. In particular, the Coors Brewing Company. After many years of being boycotted, Coors wanted to improve its image among Chicano activists and become the largest supporter of Cinco de Mayo as a holiday event. By the 90s, the holiday had been so commercialized and stripped of its original meaning that people forgot the roots of its creation and the radical purpose for its Chicana Chicano revival. What was left was an anglicized version of an event that was once a vehicle through which the ethnic Mexican community in the US could not only celebrate the triumphs of its cultural homeland but also those of its adopted one. In sum, the answer to the question of why Cinco de Mayo is and should continue to be celebrated in the US is because, as David Hayes Bautista explains, the holiday is not simply an important Mexican celebration. It truly is an American holiday. And with that, my friends, in that spirit in mind, I say to you, Viva Juarez, viva el General Saragoza y que viva el Cinco de Mayo.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

Word up. It's so funny because the same conversations come up every single year. Like I jumped on Google before we uh recorded this and I just kind of did a brief search, and there's always like five myths of Cinco de Mayo debunked, or ten false beliefs of Cinco de Mayo, and it's always the same ones. It's always clickbaity stuff, too. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's like, you well, you know it's not Mexican Independence Day, right? And you know it's not celebrated nationally in Mexico, right? And I don't know, it's just they're like really smarmy. The articles come off is very smarmy. One thing that I do want to bring up is a bit of uh not so much pseudo history, but so it's sort of like a distorted history as part of the overall nationalist narrative that does get pushed a lot, is that the battalion from uh Zacapoachla uh is always noted as being a major part of the Battle of Puebla. And the Sacapoachla people, which is uh a Nawa community in in northern Puebla, are elevated as like the brave indigenous fighters who fought and you know their machetes and helped defeat the French. But in reality, this is sort of a false narrative because if you dig a little bit deeper, you find out that the battalion, the Sacapoachla battalion, was not called that because it was made of Sacapuatla people. It's just the name of the battalion that was stationed near that community. And the reason that the battalion was stationed there was because they feared an uprising from the Sacapuatla people. And that's why that battalion had that name, and that's why they were stationed there. So it wasn't like this battalion of Sacapuashtla people. In fact, it was kind of the opposite. It was soldiers that were put there to put down a this possible rebellion. This is a myth within a myth. Yeah, it's a myth within a myth. And the indigenous communities, mainly Nawas, who did participate in the battle, are are uh Chochiapulco and uh Sierra de Tetela and some other Nahua communities, have always kind of felt a little bit of resentment. Like the people of Sacapuachla are being elevated as part of this grand national narrative.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Um they're getting credit for something that they didn't do themselves.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

Exactly. And I mean it's possible that people from Sacapuachla participated in the battle, but the brunt of the army, and I think it was the 6th Battalion of Puebla is what they were called, was made up primarily of indigenous people from Chociapulco and the Sierra de Tetela. So here's some props to them. Um, their history is starting to come out more and more. You'll find um Mexican historians speaking more about them and sort of putting things into perspective and setting the record straight, as it were. But if you go to the celebration in Puebla for Cinco de Mayo, it's mainly people dressed like warriors, you know, from uh are they dressed in the manta and the sombreros and the machetes and um from uh Sacapuatla, like the the community that's that didn't participate. So So they're the ones that are dressing up, yeah. They're they're they're elevated and and celebrated, but they actually it's like a little distortion of history. So I thought it was worth setting that record straight. So props to all of the uh the Nahuas from Chochiapulco and the Sierra de Tetela who threw down during this battle. Shout out. And the other thing is, yeah, it's not Mexican Independence Day. I wish people would stop confusing.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Well, you know, that's the that's one of the reasons why I decided to write this because year after year, our own gente, you see them on social media badgering people, I would say to a degree about this is not Independence Day. It's uh don't do this and don't do that. And I'm thinking, well, maybe, maybe, but I mean it is a holiday. Um Yeah, they go a little bit overboard in trying to shame people out of celebrating it at all. Exactly. Right. It's like that's the whole point of it. You're supposed to I mean, the only thing that I have against our current version of the holiday is that people have forgotten the meaning behind it. Not that people celebrate it at all. I mean, I'm all for anyone at all to celebrate the holiday. Yeah, I mean that's the whole point. But as long as we understand, like, why are we doing this, you know, is it because Chicanos are so dumb that they started to celebrate Cinco de Mayo instead of decided septiembre? I mean, because I've heard that before too. It's like, oh, you Chicanos don't know your Mexican history. Like, well, no, because you don't know Chicano history. That's the problem. It's the other way around. You know, it's not that we don't know Mexican history, we know Mexican history, probably more so than you. We just happen to also know Chicano history, which you apparently don't.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

So here I am on my soapbox. On your soapbox. Well, what's funny is I don't know if you ever watched um Arrested Development, the TV show. Kind of there was like a whole story of this invented holiday that the Bluth family, their the Bluth family are like the main characters, and their their parents were like really racist back in the 80s. Well, they're still the characters are still racist, but more even more so um back in the 80s. And in the TV show, they showed that the Bluth parents were upset that all of their Mexican employees were taking Cinco de Mayo off, and this really bothered them. So they came up with a fake holiday called Cinco de Cuatro. You know, I have heard of that actually. And it was to be held the day before Cinco de Mayo, and the idea was they would take up all of the alcohol and all of the Mexican decorations, and there would be nothing left for Cinco de Mayo celebrations, so they would keep their employees.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Wait, didn't Obama once say Happy Cinco de Cuatro or something to that effect? Oh man, I think so. Amazing. I really hope that happened. I think he was I I forget the context. He was somewhere giving a speech or something, and then he just happened to say happy cinco de cuatro.

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Well, maybe he's just a big arrested development fan. There you go. There you go. But the great thing about uh what happens in the TV show is the Mexican community sees an opportunity in Cinco de Cuatro, so they embrace it, and it actually becomes like this huge drinking holiday for white people, and all the mexicanos are making money off of it by holding 5 de cuatro events. So if anybody's interested, I'm I'm a I'm a big arrested development fan. So if anybody's interested, I'll I'll check out those episodes because they're pretty funny. But beyond that, I hope everybody has a safe and fun Cinco de Mayo. And uh I hope everybody found this episode informative and useful, and try not to be so uh such a hard ass on other people and and hitting them over the head with how Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day. Just chill out a little, enjoy the day.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Exactly. Take this as an opportunity to teach. As an instructor, as a teacher, that's the way that I view these things. Take the high road and be like, oh, so you you think that this is uh Independence Day. Okay, well, here's a lesson for you. Do it politely, do it in a nice way. Everything doesn't have to be a conflict and a battle. And to all our gringo listeners, viva la razza, dude.