Are there even celebrations of Cinco de Mayo in Mexico City? If so, I haven’t heard about them. The swine flu would make it a little complicated this year anyway. I know for sure that it is more of a regional holiday than anything. It’s not a national holiday or the celebration of Mexican Independence Day.
I read a great post from National Geographic’s Intelligent Travel blog about the history of 5 de Mayo.
In Mexico today, Cinco de Mayo is primarily a regional holiday marked in Puebla, though some re-enactments of the battle, period costumes and all, take place in Mexico City as well. In the U.S., some see Cinco de Mayo as the Mexican, or, more accurately, Chicano St. Patrick’s Day. While Irish Americans celebrate St. Patrick, German Americans have their Oktoberfest, and Chinese Americans have Chinese New Year, Chicanos and Latinos from other countries see Cinco de Mayo as a celebration of Latino resilience and pride. Cinco de Mayo is not just a day of festivities for Latinos but for all Americans interested in the history of Mexico, Mexican culture and identity in the U.S., good food and drink, mariachi music, and folk dances.Chicano students first celebrated the holiday in 1967 at Cal State University. Since the 1980s, Cinco de Mayo has been increasingly commercialized and become less about pride and self-determination and more about drinking Mexican beer.
Read the rest of the post here.
If you’re interested, check out a video of a trip we took to Puebla back in 2005..
