Denver’s Latino community reclaims anti-colonial history of Cinco de Mayo
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DENVER — It’s easy to remember what date Cinco de Mayo falls on.
But the history behind the holiday — often symbolized in America by tacos, tequila, sombreros and other stereotypical Mexican iconography — is less obvious.
Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of Mexican resistance against colonial forces. It commemorates Mexico’s military victory against much larger French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.
More than 160 years later, in the face of immigration raids and mass deportation efforts, Mexican-American community leaders want to honor the holiday’s roots of resilience.
“It's the idea that working class people pushed to the brink can defeat an empire even just for one day. Our social conditions are bleak. It's really important to remember the legacy of resistance that we come from,” said Tim Hernández.
Hernández, a community organizer and former state representative, is one of the organizers of the Cinco de Mayo en Westwood event, held May 3 and 4. Westwood, a southwest Denver neighborhood, has a large Latino and immigrant community.
Lucha Martínez de Luna, associate curator of Hispano, Chicano, Latino History and Culture, said many people assume Cinco de Mayo celebrates Mexico’s independence, which is actually observed on Sept. 16.
“We go through moments in time of intentional erasure of history, and it has happened a lot with Mexican history and their relationship with the United States. This history is not taught in our schools, which it should be, because Colorado was part of Mexico,” Martínez de Luna said.
In 1861, the War of Reform, a Mexican civil conflict, ended and left the country bankrupt. Benito Juarez, Mexico’s new president, put a moratorium on all of Mexico’s debts, especially with France, Spain and England.
In response, those three European powers landed in Veracruz with the plan to attack Mexico and force it to pay its debts. The Spanish and English forces decide to retreat after negotiating with the Mexican government.
France, however, had other plans. Under Napoleon III’s command, the French army planned to attack Mexico and make it a part of the French empire.
French troops marched from Veracruz to Puebla, just outside of Mexico City. There, they faced a Mexican army half their size.
Although outnumbered, the Mexican troops, led by General Ignacio Zaragoza, won a decisive victory over the French and delayed the French occupation of Mexico for another year.
When Mexican forces prevailed in Puebla, people in both Mexico and the United States celebrated the win.
Just 14 years earlier, in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo annexed a large portion of Mexico’s territory to the U.S., including part of the land that is now Colorado. The Mexicans living on this land became residents of the U.S. but were still invested in Mexico’s success.
Some historians attribute Mexico’s victory with aiding the Union’s eventual triumph over the Confederacy during the American Civil War, which was ongoing during the Battle of Puebla.
Once he occupied Mexico, Napoleon III planned to supply weapons to the Confederacy in exchange for cotton. By the time French forces marched into Mexico City a year later, Abraham Lincoln had already issued the Emancipation Proclamation and the Union had made significant gains in the war.
Chicano activists in the 1960s and 70s who embraced Cinco de Mayo’s message of resistance helped revive the holiday’s observance in the U.S. In the 1980s, beer companies, like Coors, Anheuser-Busch and Miller began using Cinco de Mayo in their marketing, contributing to the commercialization of the holiday.
Through supporting local vendors, folklórico dance performances and a community art show highlighting themes of resistance, Hernández said the celebration in Westwood aimed to combat the holiday’s commodification of Mexican culture.
“[Cinco de Mayo en Westwood was] organized by brown folks for brown folks,” Hernández said.
“To see the legacy of that day really be reduced to what I would deem as stereotypical Mexican epithets is not only harmful, but it's really offensive. We don't believe in necessarily pointing the finger and wagging it at folks and telling them that they're wrong without an opportunity for folks to really ground themselves and be a part of the cultural celebration.”
Today, Cinco de Mayo celebrations are more widespread in the U.S. than in Mexico, where it’s mainly observed in Puebla.
“It's the importance of an opportunity to celebrate Mexican heritage, the diaspora. We have the right to have access to this history because it is part of our history and part of the history of the United States. We have the right to celebrate it because it is so much a part of our heritage and our identity,” Martínez de Luna said.
“That's how I grew up knowing it is that it was also an act of defiance like, ‘No, we cannot be ignored and our history will not be erased.’”
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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