This has always bothered me. Cinco de Mayo, despite being nowhere near as important as Independence Day, has always been more commercially successful in the United States.
Why is it more important? Independence Day marks the anniversary of the beginning of the struggle of independence from the Spanish overlords. (As a fun side note, in Mexico, the beginning of the fight is what people celebrate. In the United States, everyone celebrates the end of the fight. This small but significant detail may explain my affinity for doling out headlocks while drunk.) In any case, on the night of the 15th/morning of the 16th of 1810, a pissed-off priest ascended the stairs of the tallest Catholic church in Dolores Hidalgo and sounded "El Grito," or the call to arms via church bell. Every time you cry "Viva Villa!" "Viva la Revolucion!" or "Viva Tequila!" you are cribbing from this guy.
Tonight, in Mexico, every head of the executive will go out to the seat of his own jurisdiction and imitate this cry. This includes the President in the Main Square of Mexico City. Some crazy people do this too.*
Cinco de Mayo, on the other hand, is a mere commemoration of a victory against the French Army. Whoop-dee-freaking-doo. In Europe, they call it "Friday."
But I guess I shouldn't complain. Any excuse to start the night off with tequila is fine by me. When otherwise sane American women put on Mexican hats and scream CINCO DE DRINKO, well, that's what sharing one's heritage is all about.
So, if you hear random Mexicans yelling at you tonight, they are not trying to be inappropriate. Probably. So just smile, give them a little space and run for your lives.
*Addendum. I have been informed that most of my readership does not read Spanish. Lopez Obrador is the guy who lost the presidential election in 2006. He does not accept this, and, for the last 2 years, has been calling himself the "legitimate president" and roaming the country trying to institute a revolution. Imagine, if you will, Al Gore, in a fit of hubris, touring the Northeast, holding rallies, trying to organize grassroots movement, and letting loose a flood of propaganda aimed at the legitimization of his goals. Except he calls himself president.
3 comments:
Free tip if you ever need to take a citizenship exam here: The Fourth of July doesn't celebrate the successful conclusion of the American revolution. It's sort of the middle, when we figured out, after 14 months of pretty serious warfare, what it was we were fighting for.
I thought you were from Ohio?!?
Actually (and sorry for being a perfectionist pain) the independence war began on the night of the 16th, morning of the 17th. The only reason we celebrate it a day early is because september 15th was Porfirio Díaz's birthday, and he modified the celebrations so both would coincide. And no one bothered changing it back
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