Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo (Mexican Spanish: [ˈsiŋko ðe ˈmaʝo]; Spanish for 'Fifth of May') is an annual celebration held on May 5 to celebrate Mexico's victory over the Second French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, led by General Ignacio Zaragoza. Zaragoza died months after the battle from an illness, however, and a larger French force ultimately defeated the Mexican army at the Second Battle of Puebla and then occupied Mexico City. Following the end of the American Civil War in 1865, the United States began lending money and guns to the Mexican Liberals, pushing France and Mexican Conservatives to the edge of defeat. At the opening of the French chambers in January 1866, Napoleon III announced that he would withdraw French troops from Mexico. In reply to a French request for American neutrality, the American secretary of state William H. Seward replied that French withdrawal from Mexico should be unconditional.

More popular in the United States than in Mexico, Cinco de Mayo has become associated with the celebration of Mexican-American culture. Celebrations began in Columbia, California, where they have been observed annually since 1862. The day gained nationwide popularity beyond those of Mexican-American heritage in the 1980s due to advertising campaigns by beer, wine, and tequila companies; today, Cinco de Mayo generates beer sales on par with the Super Bowl. In Mexico, the commemoration of the battle continues to be mostly ceremonial, such as through military parades or battle reenactments. The city of Puebla marks the event with various festivals and reenactments of the battle.

Cinco de Mayo is sometimes mistaken for Mexican Independence Day—the most important national holiday in Mexico—which is celebrated on September 16, commemorating the Grito de Dolores ("Cry of Dolores") in 1810, which initiated the Mexican War of Independence from Spain. Cinco de Mayo has been referenced and featured in entertainment media, and has become an increasingly global celebration of Mexican culture, cuisine, and heritage.

Context

Events before the Battle of Puebla

Cinco de Mayo has its roots in the second French intervention in Mexico, which took place in the aftermath of the 1846–48 Mexican–American War and the 1858–61 Reform War. The Reform War was a civil war that pitted Liberals (who believed in separation of church and state and freedom of religion) against Conservatives (who favored a tight bond between the Catholic Church and the Mexican state). These wars nearly bankrupted the Mexican Treasury. On July 17, 1861, Mexican President Benito Juárez issued a moratorium in which all foreign debt payments would be suspended for two years. In response, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom held a convention in London and joined in alliance to send naval forces to Veracruz to demand reimbursement. France, at the time ruled by Napoleon III, decided to use the opportunity to establish an empire in Mexico that would favor French interests, whereupon Britain and Spain negotiated with Mexico and peacefully withdrew. The empire was part of an envisioned "Latin America" (term used to imply cultural kinship of the region with France) that would rebuild French influence in the American continent and exclude Anglophone American territories.

Battle of Puebla and victory

Late in 1861, a well-armed French fleet attacked Veracruz, landing a large French force and driving President Juárez and his government into retreat. Moving on from Veracruz towards Mexico City, the French army encountered heavy resistance from the Mexicans close to Puebla, at the Mexican forts of Loreto and Guadalupe. The French army of 6,500–8,000 attacked the poorly equipped Mexican army of 4,000. On May 5, 1862, the Mexicans decisively defeated the French army. The victory represented a significant morale boost to the Mexican army and the Mexican people at large and helped to establish a sense of national unity and patriotism.

Events after the Battle of Puebla

The Mexican victory, however, was short-lived. A year later, with 30,000 troops, the French were able to defeat the Mexican army, capture Mexico City, and install Emperor Maximilian I as ruler of Mexico. Maximilian's rule lasted only three years, from 1864 to 1867. By 1865, "with the American Civil War now over, the U.S. began to provide more political and military assistance to Mexico to expel the French." After the American Civil War's end, Napoleon III, facing a persistent Mexican guerilla resistance, the threat of war with Prussia, and "the prospect of a serious scrap with the United States", began withdrawing French troops from Mexico in 1866. The Mexicans recaptured Mexico City, and Maximilian I was apprehended and executed, along with his Mexican generals Miguel Miramón and Tomás Mejía Camacho in Cerro de las Campanas, Querétaro. "On June 5, 1867, Benito Juárez entered Mexico City where he installed a new government organizing his administration."

Significance

The Battle of Puebla was significant, both nationally and internationally, for several reasons. First, "This battle was significant in that the 4,000 Mexican soldiers were greatly outnumbered by the well-equipped French army of 8,000 that had not been defeated for almost 50 years." Second, since the overall failed French intervention, The Bulletin has argued that no country in the Americas has subsequently been invaded by any other military force from another continent. Historian Justo Sierra has suggested in his Political Evolution of the Mexican People that, had Mexico not defeated the French in Puebla on May 5, 1862, France would have gone to the aid of the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War and the United States' destiny could have been different.

History of the holiday in Mexico

On May 9, 1862, President Juárez declared that the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla would be a national holiday regarded as "Battle of Puebla Day" or "Battle of Cinco de Mayo".

The national celebration of the day peaked during the Porfiriato, the long rule of President/dictator Porfirio Díaz, who had fought in the Battle of Puebla as a young officer. According to historian Kelly Lytle Hernández, Díaz "strategically turned the Cinco de Mayo Festival or celebration into a celebration of his power and his reign and made it something that was celebrated across Mexico and even in diasporic Mexican communities in the United States." Because of this association, in much of Mexico, Cinco de Mayo celebrations declined after Díaz was deposed in the Mexican Revolution.

Today, the commemoration of the battle is not observed as a national holiday in Mexico (i.e. not a statutory holiday). However, all public schools are closed nationwide in Mexico on May 5. The day is an official holiday in the State of Puebla, where the Battle took place, and also a full holiday (no work) in the neighboring State of Veracruz.

In Puebla, historical reenactments, parades, and meals take place to commemorate the battle. Parade participants dress as French and Mexican soldiers to reenact the battle. Every year the city also hosts the Festival Internacional de Puebla, which gathers national and international artists, traditional musicians and dancers, as well as the Festival Internacional del Mole, with an emphasis on the city's iconic mole poblano.

In Mexico City, military commemoration is occasionally held at the Campo Marte. A street, Avenida Cinco de Mayo, in the Historic Center of Mexico City was named after the battle in 1862 by Benito Juárez.

History of the holiday in United States

Remembrance of Cinco de Mayo, began, in the 1860s, by Latinos in California, Nevada, Oregon, and Texas in the context of the Latino experience of the Mexican Independence Day, Mexican Declaration of Independence, and the American Civil War in the Far West and Mexico.

The Chicano movement began commemorating Cinco de Mayo in the second half of the twentieth century.

According to David E. Hayes-Bautista, author of El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition, there is evidence that, in 1862, the same year the battle took place, the Mexican community in California started celebrating the victory of Cinco de Mayo. La Voz de Méjico (San Francisco, California, Spanish, 1862–1866) published detailed accounts of the battle. On 7 June 1862, La Voz de Méjico reported that a Cinco de Mayo celebration took place on May 22 in the town of Columbia, California. Attendees toasted to their fellow Mexican's victory and sang patriotic songs.

Back in California, Mexican Americans followed the news in Spanish language newspapers and were thrilled by Mexico's victory. It led them to form political organizations — Juntas Patrióticas Mejicanas — which met monthly and raised money to send to Mexico's President Juarez to aid his fight against the French. There would eventually be 129 Juntas, mostly in California. When the groups got together, speakers used the Battle of Puebla as a rallying cry to fight for democracy, Hayes-Bautista said. The first Cinco de Mayo commemorations were held in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1863 with parades, speakers and music.