¡Viva el pueblo!

We’re coming up on Cinco de Mayo, a holiday celebrated more widely in the US than in México. In my native California, the celebrations will have been going on for days, involving fiestas, mariachis & copious amounts of tequila y cerveza.

You may not know that Cinco de Mayo is basically a regional holiday in México, marking the defeat by forces under Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín of the invading French army at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. The victory didn’t stop the French, intent on an imperial adventure come what may. Not until 1867, when the US woke up from our own civil war & started reminding the French of the Monroe Doctrine, & adding that, gee, we have this whole army hanging around, trained, equipped & everything…did the French withdraw.

They left behind their ersatz "emperor of México", Maximilian, who had the misfortune to be an unemployed Hapsburg archduke (& possible relative of that popinjay Napoleon III), at a time when France needed a figurehead to legitimize their invasion of México. He was shot on the orders of Benito Juárez on 19 June 1867.

Sic semper imperis.

Cinco de Mayo isn’t actually México’s independence day—that’s 16 September, when a criollo priest rallied the Mexicans to drive the Spaniards out in 1810. It’s kind of like the Fourth of July in the US—there wasn’t a major military victory, but the very act of declaring that enough is enough is the point at which a nation grows out of a colony.

Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla inspired his countrymen with “el grito de Dolores” (“Cry of Dolores). This was something along the lines of, “Long live Our Lady of Guadalupe, death to bad government & death to the Spaniards!” The Battle of Guanjuato followed a few days later, the war was on & the Spanish didn’t actually acknowledge México’s independence until 1821.

But back to the celebration at hand. It’s really a occasion to revel in the heritage of the Mexican immigrants to this country. I don’t remember it as a kid in LA, but by the 80s it was big time.

Eric Felten has written about an alternative to margaritas for the holiday. I have to say that the Michelada sounds like a ruination of beer. Notwithstanding the fact that I have yet to have a margarita in Metro Seattle that hasn’t been utterly vile, I’m definitely not trying the Michelada.

I might go for just one shot of reposado, to drink to the death to bad government. That’s always something worthy of toasting.

¡Viva la Revolución!