DazeBlog

Cinco de Mayo commemorates the military victory of the Mexican army against invading French forces at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. It was an almost unbelievable victory for the Mexican forces, underdogs who defeated one of the most powerful armies in the world.

Yet, Cinco de Mayo is not widely celebrated in Mexico outside of Puebla. Unlike Mexico’s Independence Day, Sept. 16, it is not even a federal holiday.

In the United States, by contrast, more than 500 cities have annual Cinco de Mayo celebrations, with the largest in Los Angeles drawing as many as 500,000 revelers.

So, is it strange that Cinco de Mayo is more widely celebrated in the United States than in Mexico?

No — because Cinco de Mayo is a celebration created by and for Latino communities in the United States. And the celebration of Cinco de Mayo is more about U.S. Latino history and culture than Mexican history.

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Certainly, the military battle itself plays a significant role in Mexican history. In the early 1860s, under the guidance of President Benito Juárez, Mexico was emerging from several tumultuous decades filled with internal strife, civil war and foreign intervention.

During this time, Mexico had accumulated massive debts with European creditors. In 1861, in an effort to reestablish some stability, Juárez declared a two-year moratorium on the payment of foreign debts. Outraged, Spain, England and France, who had the largest claims, sent troops to Mexico. Spain and England rather quickly reached agreements with Mexico and withdrew their troops, but France stayed.

It quickly became apparent that Napoleon III had plans to make Mexico a French colony.

The United States found itself in a tricky situation. Per the Monroe Doctrine (1823), it had long proclaimed its intolerance for further European colonization in the western hemisphere. But its military was already overtaxed with the ongoing American Civil War (1861-1865). There was also concern that sending aid to the Juárez government would push France into an alliance with the Confederacy. At the same time, Union politicians also feared that if Napoleon established himself in Mexico, he might open up trade with the Confederacy through their shared land border. Both action and inaction might have serious repercussions for both Mexico and the Union.

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In 1862, as the French army marched toward the capital of Mexico City, the town of Puebla stood in the way. Despite being outnumbered, the Mexicans managed to hold Puebla, and the French army retreated.

The victory at Puebla was mostly symbolic for Mexicans. It represented their commitment to republicanism and nurtured a sense of patriotic union.

But for Latinos in California, the victory at Puebla represented much more. As scholar David Hayes-Bautista has shown, Latinos in California almost immediately understood the significance of this victory as part of a shared, broadly American struggle for democracy and liberty — one that could even help raise morale in the Union fight against the Confederacy. If a downtrodden Mexico could defeat an imperial army, then there was hope for the Union to throw off the tyrannical rule of slavery in the South.

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And it was more than symbolic. The French defeat at Puebla was a significant blow for the Confederacy, which was hoping for a quick French victory and the support of a French-controlled Mexico. For Latinos, this could have tangible consequences. If the Confederacy triumphed or if California became a slave state, would Latinos be deprived of their U.S. citizenship?

And so, Latinos in California, Nevada and Oregon celebrated, using Cinco de Mayo as a rallying cry for the formation of juntas patrióticas mexicanas (Mexican patriotic assemblies). In the 1860s, the juntas funneled money, political support and even volunteer army recruits toward defending freedom and democracy from the Confederacy in the United States and from French invaders and imperialists in Mexico.

French troops did eventually take Puebla and Mexico City the following year. And Napoleon III realized his dream of extending his empire to the Americas, installing the Austrian archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Habsburg as emperor of Mexico in 1864.

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But that didn’t change the meaning of the Battle of Puebla for Latinos in the United States. Evoking Cinco de Mayo became shorthand for recognizing the intertwined fates and struggles of the United States and Mexico and Latinos’ connections to and investment in culture and politics in both countries.

When Latinos in Los Angeles celebrated the first commemoration of Cinco de Mayo in 1863, they raised the Mexican and U.S. flags together, and paraded them both through the streets. In the following decades, the event was almost always commemorated with both U.S. and Mexican flags, and with references to and depictions of Juárez, as well as Simón Bolívar and Miguel Hidalgo, earlier revolutionary heroes in South America and Mexico. But George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were also frequently referenced and represented alongside them. They were heroes in a shared hemispheric fight against despotism and oppression.

Juárez and his army eventually restored Mexico’s sovereignty. Emperor Maximilian was executed in 1867, putting an end to Napoleon III’s imperial designs in Mexico. The Union won the Civil War and slavery was abolished. But the struggle for justice and liberty didn’t stop with these victories.

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Over time, the juntas that were formed in the 1860s expanded the scope of their interests and activities to include protecting the civil rights of Latinos and raising money for disadvantaged Latinos in their communities, a sort of early mutual aid society. The juntas that formed around the memory of Cinco de Mayo thus helped to form and respond to the needs of newly emerging Latino communities in the Western United States.

In the early 20th century, the memory of the first Battle of Puebla and its connection to the U.S. Civil War faded with younger generations of Latinos. And a new surge of Mexican immigrants during this time focused on Cinco de Mayo more as an expression of Mexican pride, heritage and culture, rather than as an articulation of local ethnic solidarity and bicultural pride.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Chicano activists championed the holiday as a celebration of Indigenous Mexican triumph over European invasion and colonization, and as a chance to acknowledge and fuel the struggle for civil rights and social justice for Latinos in the United States.

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Over the past few decades, Cinco de Mayo has become increasingly commercialized, as big business, especially beer companies, recognized the potential profit in a growing Latino demographic. In the process, it has also become more misunderstood. (Most Americans, in fact, still think it is Mexican Independence Day.)

But the history behind the commemoration of the battle shows how bicultural and bilingual Latino communities used the memory of Cinco de Mayo to advocate for constitutional governance, democracy and civil rights, and to oppose slavery, autocratic forms of governance and discrimination. Since then, the vitality of Cinco de Mayo celebrations is rooted in the holiday’s flexibility to adapt to and reflect the realities of Latinos in different historical moments.

In other words, Cinco de Mayo is not a Mexican “import,” but a celebration created by and for Latinos that recognizes the political and cultural ties between Mexico and the United States.

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What might happen if we thought about Cinco de Mayo beyond a celebration of Mexico’s delicious food, its beautiful artistic and cultural traditions and rich history? History shows us that Cinco de Mayo is also a chance to reflect on and celebrate the contributions of Latinos to U.S. history and politics. It is also an opportunity to reflect upon how Mexicans and Latinos in the U.S. have long been essential to the struggle against White supremacy, racism and colonialism.

That seems like something worth celebrating.

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