Cinco de Mayo a Mexican import? No, it's as American as July 4, prof says

CNN ^ | 5 may 2012 | Michael Martinez,

[mandaladon]

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Cinco de Mayo -- the unofficial U.S. holiday long believed to have been imported, with celebratory beer, from Mexico -- isn't a Mexican holiday at all but rather an American one created by Latinos in the West during the Civil War, according to new research by a California professor.

Conventional thinking has held that the holiday -- now a commercial juggernaut -- may have grown out of the mass migrations from the bloody Mexican Revolution of the 1910s or even during Chicano Power activism of the 1960s, University of California at Los Angeles Professor David Hayes-Bautista said.

But on the 150th anniversary of the holiday, Hayes-Bautista is announcing that he happened upon the true origins of Cinco de Mayo -- the 5th of May -- after poring over Spanish-language newspapers in California from the mid-1800s while working on another research project.

Cinco de Mayo does indeed mark a Mexican military victory over the invading French army on May 5, 1862, but it's celebrated more in the United States because in 1862, U.S. Latinos of Mexican heritage parlayed the victory as a rallying cry that the Union could also win the Civil War.

That's because the French sympathized with the Confederacy, and Hispanics sided with the Union in its fight against slavery and elitism, Hayes-Bautista said. France sought to impose a monarchy over democratic Mexico while U.S. foreign power weakened during the War Between the States.

Hayes-Bautista, a UCLA professor of medicine whose family lore holds his great-great grandfather fought in the famous Cinco de Mayo battle, has just published a new book on the discovery, "El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition," which one historian also at UCLA describes as "of great significance."

[a fool in paradise]

I’m waiting for November 7th so I can celebrate Obama’s unemployment.

[a fool in paradise]

But leave it up to the Gringo’s marketing genius to find another reason to get stupid Americans into an ethic restaurant American owned most likely) and drink Mexican beer and tequila. Duh.

You can also go to a Chinese, Japanese, Italian, or barbecue restaurant these days. No matter who owns the bidness or runs the counter, the kitchen staff is likely to be largely hispanic with tejano sounds on the radio coming from the kitchen.

[DemforBush]

It’s a day of remembrance in Illinois (I think it’s just Illinois, not sure) for Casimir Pulaski, a Polish cavalry officer who became a general (on our side) in the Revolutionary War.

[DemforBush]

I’m buying the first round in celebration on that day, FRiend!

[Leep]

I think Cinco de mayo is mexican for drink a beer and eat a taco..?
Otherwise, as long as I do not have to submit or pray five times a day.
Its a big...whatever.

[Leep]

I’m waiting for November 7th so I can celebrate Obama’s unemployment.

That will be a historic moment. The first half black non-

citizen,and worst President in America, gets the boot.

Drinks all around!

and the first white hispanic momon is elected President..?

Someone else can by that round of drinks.

[Monorprise]

Not that i know of. But i do know that Cinco De Mayo is not as widely recognized or celebrated in Mexico as it is in the US. I also Know that it started out here and did not move into mexico until much later where it was imported from us.

Cinco De Mayo is indeed a U.S. Export not Inport. Much like Nachos. While this may be news to the professor its not news to me. I’ve known this to be the case for many years now.

What I can’t be sure of is the exact cause of the celebration whether it was out of sympathy for the north or simply a matter of a victory against foreign reconquest in the Americas.

I know there was extensive trade between Texas and Mexico during the war between the States. That Mexico in this way provided a backdoor for the confederacy to access the rest of the world. At least until Lincoln’s imperial navy took control of the Mississippi.

I don’t think either Government of Mexico were too particular about whom they traded with. The French like the British were however sympathetic to the confederacy owing to the hypocritical position of Linclin’s Government (betraying the very foundation of self-determination of the once free republic he claim to be defending). Under Lincoln’s imperial threat of war for mere reconciliation nether took sides. The British almost sided with the Confederacy thou.

Trade with mexico largely consisted of “smuggling”, the french & British invasion(Which was initially just to recover debt mexico owed them) rendered mexico in as much need of their arms & resources as the Confederacy.

[BenLurkin]

Makes sense. I figured it was something like that.

In Cleveland there is a statue to Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish patriot and volunteer with the American patriots.

[a fool in paradise]

It may be the only date in history where someone being fired actually LOWERS the unemployment rate.

[Hulka]

Anti-Catholic bias (anger) still showing.

Please post links to the documents that prove what you allege happened—from the Catholic Church, mind you.

That would be helpful.

[kearnyirish2]

“The French lost the battle but they conquered Mexico and only left because of the end of the US Civil War. They made Maximilian the emperor of Mexico.”

They lost the war and Maximillian was executed.