Yo Quiero Cinco de Mayo
So, another Cinco de Mayo holiday season has passed - this time with hardly so much a taco fart being passed in the streets by a drunken fast food worker. I find that kind of surprising considering all the attention that the illegal immigrants have been making in the news lately.
I was half expecting some mass Cinco de Mayo celebration-slash-protest to erupt in violence over the weekend…but so far, nada. Not even a single walkout from disgruntled Denny’s workers. In fact, Cinco de Mayo pretty much passed unnoticed this year.
Maybe it was the ill sentiment for immigration protests last week being expressed by native Americans, or maybe it was just the fact that nobody really knows what the fuck Cinco de Mayo is anyway. Mexico declared its independence from mother Spain on midnight, the 15th of September 1810. And it took 11 years before the first Spanish soldiers were told and forced to leave Mexico.
So, why Cinco de Mayo? And why should the rest of us savor this day as well? Because 4,000 Mexican soldiers smashed the French and traitor Mexican army of 8,000 at Puebla, Mexico, 100 miles east of Mexico City on the morning of May 5, 1862? Sure, that sounds like a great Antonio Banderas movie and all – but what significance is that for me?
It seems to me that Cinco de Mayo is just an excuse for University students to get catastrophically drunk off their asses and light off fireworks in their Common rooms. The real significance of the holiday has been long forgotten by annual partygoers. Ask any tequila soaked rhubarb you find stumbling around campus who Colonel Porfirio Diaz was and they’re likely to answer that he was Cameron Diaz’s father or something. Certainly not the Mexican army officer who’s combined determination and inspiration could have very well attributed to the overall survival of the United States leading to the defeat of the Confederacy at Gettysburg and thereby ending the American Civil War. No, sir!
Considering that thousands of migrant workers had just finished marching in protest to rally support for their cultural only the previous Monday, celebrations this year were considerably subdued.
I, for one, celebrated Cinco de Mayo this year by dusting off my stash of Herp Alpert vinyl albums, tipping the drive-thru attendant at Taco Bell and returning home to spend the rest of the evening watching midget wrestling on the SPIC Channel.
A real trifecta of authentic Mexican culture, eh?
I was half expecting some mass Cinco de Mayo celebration-slash-protest to erupt in violence over the weekend…but so far, nada. Not even a single walkout from disgruntled Denny’s workers. In fact, Cinco de Mayo pretty much passed unnoticed this year.
Maybe it was the ill sentiment for immigration protests last week being expressed by native Americans, or maybe it was just the fact that nobody really knows what the fuck Cinco de Mayo is anyway. Mexico declared its independence from mother Spain on midnight, the 15th of September 1810. And it took 11 years before the first Spanish soldiers were told and forced to leave Mexico.
So, why Cinco de Mayo? And why should the rest of us savor this day as well? Because 4,000 Mexican soldiers smashed the French and traitor Mexican army of 8,000 at Puebla, Mexico, 100 miles east of Mexico City on the morning of May 5, 1862? Sure, that sounds like a great Antonio Banderas movie and all – but what significance is that for me?
It seems to me that Cinco de Mayo is just an excuse for University students to get catastrophically drunk off their asses and light off fireworks in their Common rooms. The real significance of the holiday has been long forgotten by annual partygoers. Ask any tequila soaked rhubarb you find stumbling around campus who Colonel Porfirio Diaz was and they’re likely to answer that he was Cameron Diaz’s father or something. Certainly not the Mexican army officer who’s combined determination and inspiration could have very well attributed to the overall survival of the United States leading to the defeat of the Confederacy at Gettysburg and thereby ending the American Civil War. No, sir!
Considering that thousands of migrant workers had just finished marching in protest to rally support for their cultural only the previous Monday, celebrations this year were considerably subdued.
I, for one, celebrated Cinco de Mayo this year by dusting off my stash of Herp Alpert vinyl albums, tipping the drive-thru attendant at Taco Bell and returning home to spend the rest of the evening watching midget wrestling on the SPIC Channel.
A real trifecta of authentic Mexican culture, eh?
posted by crazytigerrabbitman at
7:07 PM
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