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Watch Mexico City celebrating Cinco De Mayo

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Watch Mexico City celebrating Cinco De Mayo

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Many Americans may view Cinco de Mayo as a day for feasting on Mexican cuisine. But the very first versions of those May 5 celebrations - which did not begin in Mexico, but rather in the U.S. during the era of the Gold Rush and the Civil War - were less about food and drink, and more about taking a side in a then-ongoing geopolitical conflict.

But, says one expert, that means it's possible to throw a historically appropriate Cinco de Mayo party.

The May 5 event that is commemorated by the holiday was the victory of a ragtag group of Mexican fighters over Napoleon III's well-organized French forces at the May 5, 1862, Battle of Puebla. The parties started almost immediately, among Latinos living in California, Nevada and Oregon, who had been drawn north during the previous decade by the Gold Rush and who heard the news of the victory not too long after it happened.

Their reasons for celebrating the result went beyond pride in their homeland. At the time, Nevada was not yet a state but California and Oregon had relatively recently joined the Union as free states. The Civil War had begun, and the question of abolition of slavery's future throughout the U.S. was not yet decided. Meanwhile, in Mexico, the French were hoping to oust democratically-elected President Benito Juarez and form a new monarchy. That new government, it was thought by many, would make an alliance with the Confederate States of America and maybe even reestablish slavery in Mexico, where it had been abolished earlier.

"The slave states were looking for one European country to recognize their existence," says David Hayes-Bautista, author of El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition, and they hoped France could be the one.
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T h e first of the spontaneous celebrations of the victory at Puebla took place in the Gold Rush town of Columbia in Tuolumne Country, Calif. After all, it was a "very scary" time for Latinos in California, says Hayes-Bautista. Because the region was part of Mexico until the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War and ceded California to the United States, they had benefited from the abolition of slavery and the encouragement of racial equality. (Independence movements all over Latin America made racial equality and the abolition of slavery two of their main goals.) When California became part of the U.S., even though it would be a free state, those same people suddenly lived in a country where nonwhites weren't considered citizens.

So in California, specifically, the news galvanized that population to start a statewide network of community organizations, Juntas Patriticas Mejicanas, dedicated to supporting both the Mexican president's efforts to fight the French and Lincoln's efforts to fight the Confederate States of America. (The connection between the Mexican-American population and the Civil War didn't stop there, either. For example, 18-year-old Union Army Corporal Joseph H. De Castro became the first Hispanic-American to be awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery during Pickett's Charge at the battle of Gettysburg, July 3, 1863, while Platón Vallejo, the first Latino physician from California to attend medical school in the U.S., was a volunteer surgeon with the Union Army who was even at the second battle of Bull Run.)

The story of the Battle of Puebla would be repeated at these community organizing meetings every year, but by the time that Mexicans who came over during the Gold Rush and the children who were born during that period died off in the 1920s and 1930s, the meaning of Cinco de Mayo within the context of the American Civil War started to be forgotten. And Cinco de Mayo would not be celebrated widely in Mexico (except in Puebla) because the French ended up winning a second battle of Battle of Puebla, which allowed them to push on to Mexico City and install Maximilian I as the country's empire.

Though Hayes-Bautista has found mentions of businesses wishing consumers a happy fifth of May as early as the 1930s, companies began recognizing Cinco de Mayo celebrations more and more in the 1980s and 1990s as the U.S. Hispanic population grew. Hayes-Bautista believes modern-day Cinco de Mayo gatherings that focus on drinking have lost the spirit of social justice that they used to carry.

But that doesn't mean it's not possible to throw an authentic Cinco de Mayo party: Hayes-Bautista says that turning your party into a fundraiser for an advocacy organization would be a "much more appropriate" and historically accurate way to celebrate.

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The Historically Accurate Way to Celebrate Cinco de Mayo

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Many Americans may view Cinco de Mayo as a day for feasting on Mexican cuisine. But the very first versions of those May 5 celebrations - which did not begin in Mexico, but rather in the U.S.

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There is alot of history,site seeing spots, and alot of very nice resorts and beaches

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there were 3 orginal empires the Aztec, the Inca, And the olmec they got counquerd by the spanish in the early 1500

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They are manly hispanic and are spanish speaking they have holidays like the day of the dead and cinco de mayo

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I quite like watching the TV programme on Channel 4 called "A Place in the Sun". It's a little bit of escapism I suppose, imagining yourself in a warmer place under the sun, maybe near the beach. But having lived in Spain for a while, it amazes me how the prospective ex-pats gloss over the things that in reality will be quite sizeable obstacles. One of them is the Spanish language barrier. People seem so glib about moving to places like Spain and saying things like "We're going to integrate with the locals; live the Spanish lifestyle." And then the presenter says, "Can you speak any Spanish?" to which the unwitting would-be "Spaniards" reply, "No, but we're planning on getting a few lessons" or something to that effect. I have visions of them living in the small Spanish town, in their old ages, surrounded by Spanish locals gabbling away in a totally foreign language, communicating by way of pointing at a loaf of bread or restricting themselves to shopping at Mercadona, where they can help themselves to what they want.

I know from experience that when living in Spain (and I am not talking an out-of-the-way, inland town, I'm talking a big, cosmopolitan city), it's really quite imperative to speak Spanish, truly imperative, unless you really don't want, need or care to do anything much apart from living as if you are on holiday, or living in an area like Benidorm where you can limit yourself to mingling with other ex-pats and frequenting "English" shops and bars.

Before I went for my first spell in Spain, I spent a lot of time getting to what I suppose was lower intermediate level Spanish, and felt reasonably well-prepared to overcome that Spanish language barrier, but when I arrived I discovered that I couldn't even hold a conversation, not even a basic one. People would talk too fast, or several at once, or I would get stuck on one vital word that they said or even if I managed to understand them, my reply was so slow and so late coming that they gave up waiting and reverted to English or got an English-speaking colleague to deal with me.

By the time I went for my 2 nd spell in Spain, I had learned from my earlier experience and was, I thought, even better prepared. I'd got my Spanish to what I think was about upper-intermediate level, or even lower advanced and that's about where I am now. It WAS better. I could hold a basic conversation on a range of subjects. I mean basic, mind you. I could also usually understand what the other person was trying to convey to me, or at least get the gist of it. Phone calls were trickier, but again, I could usually just about get by if I planned the call well enough. (I arranged, for example, my internet connection over the course of many tricky phone calls to Telefonica, all conducted entirely in Spanish.) But when it came to, say, a group conversation where I was the only English person, it was a lot harder, because the locals would speak more quickly, and would use colloquial phrases, and would talk several of them at once, and would not make any concessions to my middling Spanish. This is REAL Spanish; REAL Spain. I found, and find, this frustrating. It's very hard to play a part in this situation. I realised after a while that I had hit a kind of glass ceiling which would be very hard to shatter. Let me explain: When my Spanish was lower intermediate, I could order food and drink; make extremely basic comments about the weather or exchange other pleasantries, ask directions, that kind of thing. When my Spanish became upper intermediate, I was more fluent. I could grapple with the paperwork and staff at the Town Hall and jump through the various administrative hoops to get my evidence of residency; I could order a roller blind from the curtain shop; I could negotiate gas bottle delivery from the gas man in his elusive little lorry - but what I came to realise was that the Spanish language barrier was preventing me from doing something that is, for many, so important when trying to put down roots in a new place - to make friends; to communicate at such a level that you will begin to pick up on things that are an essential part of getting to know someone - their needs, desires, concerns; their nuances and idiosyncrasies and all those little character traits that often come out through the dialogue they use.

So now, in preparation for what I hope will be more spells in Spain, I am trying to take my Spanish to the next level. I try to listen to Spanish radio (via the internet) for example, and to read Spanish books. Not Spanish language-teaching books, but "real" Spanish books. I'm reading one about the Spanish real estate industry for example - a kind of training book for people entering that industry in Spain (not that I intend to, you understand). Listening to Spanish radio is REALLY useful - especially those channels that have phone-ins or where there are multiple people in the studio talking together naturally. This is real-time Spanish with no concession to the foreigner. This is the Spanish that you will need to understand, without even thinking, if you are to really communicate to the extent that you can begin to KNOW people, make friends, integrate.

For me, this is vital. If I ever went on "A Place n the Sun" - not that I ever would - I would never want to have to say "Well, I can't speak a word of Spanish - ha ha ha - but we're planning to take a few lessons because we really want to integrate with the locals." It really does involve a lot more than just a few lessons before you go or at the local Town Hall with the other novice ex-pats after you arrive in Spain. For me, learning Spanish is fun, rewarding and not like "work" at all. But be in no doubt that it takes effort and a lot of time if you want to learn a new language to the level that you can "integrate" even slightly.

I think that this is why so many ex-pats gravitate to the ex-pat world, and to places where they can get away with living, working, socialising pretty much totally with other expats. They've either never seriously wanted to integrate, or they've made token efforts with "a few lessons" of Spanish only to hit that Spanish language barrier and conclude that it's hopeless.

It actually ISN'T hopeless at all. But if you are really serious about integrating with the locals in Spain, in my experience you have to go a lot further than "a few Spanish lessons". It will be well worth your effort though. The natives ARE on the whole friendly, supportive and eager to help. They WILL on the whole appreciate that you are trying, really trying to communicate with them in their own language, and they will forgive your mistakes and give you useful feedback when they correct you. And one day you will have that truly beautiful experience of holding a conversation with a local, coming away and realising that you did it, fluently, naturally and barely conscious of the fact that you were speaking a foreign language at all.

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Beating the Spanish Language Barrier - Michael For Short

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I quite like watching the TV programme on Channel 4 called "A Place in the Sun". It's a little bit of escapism I suppose, imagining yourself in a warmer place under the sun, maybe near the beach.

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They used roads to go over and under the mountains to deliver mostly food like tacos and tortillas

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there is 2 mountain ranges and they are stooping wind from mexico and keeping mexico warm

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Mexico city is mexico capital and there is about  124,579,795 and its 758,449 SM its surrounded by the pacific and Atlantic ocean

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In the middle of the Mexican flag there is a eagle on a cactus eating a snake and that is a resemblance of the Aztec because they would settle till they found it