Cinco de Why-o?

          Back many months ago there was an event called, "The Super Bowl" which I claimed was, "The second-most American holiday, after Cinco de Mayo." In the weeks and days since many things have changed - my wife and I conceived a baby, Osama bin Laden was killed (OR WAS HE), baseball season started, some other stuff probably happened somewhere else in the world, and my productivity kept pace with my alcoholism - both have diminished significantly. This is to my everlasting shame, as I thought that perhaps drinking less would actually make me more efficient. All of this is an excuse for why all of our loyal reader(s?) have been precariously balanced on the edge of their seats for an entire Spring awaiting my blasphemous explanation of how a DAMN MEXICAN holiday could possibly be considered more American than something like Thanksgiving. I wanted to post this Thursday, but that proved impossible as I didn't write it until right now, on Monday. Diez de Mayo. Sit down (Beatrix) Kiddos. History can be fun.


WHAT IS AMERICAN?

Enough said.

            This is a question that is nearly impossible to answer just among the neighbors who live on your own street, or in your own apartment building, much less by the nation as a whole. If we considered the opinions of the entire world (which I think we can all agree is a distinctly UN-American thing to do) we would arrive at a different conclusion entirely. There are probably a few traits that most people would define as, "American" however, though they may disagree on how positive or negative those traits are. Independence, religion, recklessness, wealth, career driven, friendly, very nationalistic. To call a holiday the, "most American" we have to have some sort of baseline on which to judge what is and is not American, so let's use those few traits I just listed as a generalized description. We all have our own idea of what to be American is (hint: obese) but I think we all know what I'm talking about here.



THANKS FOR NOTHING! 
               When you ask your average every day neighborhood super hero, "Which holiday is the most American?" he or she will invariably answer with either Thanksgiving or Independence Day. If they answer with anything other than one of those two than they are obviously an idiot, as all our other holidays are celebrated around the world and might have unique American spins on them, but aren't exclusively American holidays. Independence Day is a strong contender, in that garish, jingoistic, brass band sort of way, but Thanksgiving certainly is not. While we think of Thanksgiving as the whole cutesy Pilgrim and Indian thing (and then make sure to ignore the fact that that feast was merely an ironic prologue to the story of White Man vs. Red Man and a pretty horrible decision by the Indians), Thanksgiving wasn't made an official national holiday until 1863. Sound familiar? That's right, President Abraham Lincoln declared a national day of Thanksgiving during the middle of the Civil War to celebrate the fact that the tide was turning, the Union was winning, and that no foreign powers had interfered in the war. He basically said, during his speech, "All in all it's been a pretty good year for America, ignoring the whole rebellion thing."

"HAPPY THANKSGIVING!"

               I'm from the South and all, and we all know Mr. Lincoln could be a bit of an unconstitutional dictator, but I generally like the guy and don't have any problems with him declaring a day of Thanksgiving. But it's hard to give the award for Most American Holiday to a holiday that was officially instituted while the nation was at war with itself, causing death tolls still unmatched by all of our other wars put together, and that speaks more to the Federal power vs. State power question than it does to anything to do with Pilgrims or Indians.              


CINCO DE WHY-O? 

               Ask your same friendly neighborhood Spiderman what Cinco de Mayo is and he or she will tell you, "Mexican independence day!" or more likely, "I don't know!" It's a pretty good guess, since we call our Independence Day The Fourth of July, why shouldn't them Mehicanos call theirs The Fifth of May? We all know they want to be like us, anyway, right? Well unfortunately this explanation just isn't true, or is only very slightly true. Mexico has a long and troubled past, full of war, racial bigotry, corruption, slavery, and constant conquering and re-conquering. It's no coincidence that they speak Spanish in a country that is across the ocean from Spain. In 1861 (a couple of years before Thanksgiving, for those keeping track) after a long string of wars that Mexico mostly lost (including to America in the 1840s) the Mexican government found themselves plumb out of money and announced, "Descansamos un rato en aquel pago entero de nuestra cosa de deudas, Europa." or, "We're taking a break on that whole paying our debts thing, Europe." Europe wasn't too happy about this, and France, figuring that Mexico had a history of losing wars, and France had a history of guys named Napoleon, decided to invade. Things were going swimmingly (for France) until, you guessed it, the fifth of May, 1862.

                 On this day there was a great battle that ended with the French army (double the size of the Mexican army) doing their whole French thing and tucking their tails between their legs and running squealing back to mime school. This was really just a small blip on the radar, because after re-upping on bon-bons the French army returned and crushed the Mexican army, installing a French ruler over Mexico and reigning for three years (I told you Mexico was conquered and re-conquered a lot). What does any of this have to do with the United States? Well I'm certainly glad you asked! If there's one thing that we hate as Americans, it's the god damned French. We hate them so much that we seized upon this relatively minor victory by the small Mexican underdogs against what was then the best army in the world, and we're still celebrating it 149 years later. They don't even celebrate it very much in Mexico (their real independence day is in September) but we here in America act like it is the most important Mexican holiday ever.
                See, that's another thing that makes us distinctly American - we love to take one holiday from another country and twist it into something sort of American and then pretend like we're culturally diverse. Mostly we celebrate these holidays by promoting caricatures of whatever nationality we're mocking (I mean, celebrating) and then drinking ungodly amounts of booze until we pass out, and wake up the next day American again. This is why we celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, and this is why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

                  So why is Cinco de Mayo more American than Independence Day, or Thanksgiving? Any country would celebrate the day they achieved their own independence, but only in America would we co-opt another people's victory, get the history completely wrong, use it as an excuse to drink to excess, and still celebrate it a century and a half later as a giant middle finger to the French. That ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm proud to be an American. 

"We're just celebrating Independence Day!"