Tag: celebrate

Being in New York and having little to no Mexicans around is really detrimental to the spirit of this “holiday”. Being in CA, where we stole the land from Mexico and the indigenous people have started to “hope the fence” back in (legal or not), are over taking the Caucasian population in CA; you can really get a sense of the celebration. When more than half the people around you are celebrating, pick up a beer and join in a holiday!!!

Well not many people really know what this holiday is for. They celebrate it as a Mexican Independence day but this is in fact not true! And why do Americans celebrate it as well? It is a great excuse to go out on a weekday (which it seems to usually fall on) and drink to the occasion.

Historically speaking the Fifth of May is a Mexican celebration because 4,000 Mexican soldiers smashed the traitor Mexican and Napoleon directed and undefeated French army of 8,000 at Puebla, Mexico, 100 miles east of Mexico City on the morning of May 5, 1862. Well hey! Someone else beat the French, so another reason to celebrate…. And – Mexico declared its independence from mother Spain on midnight, the 15th of September, 1810. It then took 11 years before the first Spanish soldiers were told and forced to leave Mexico.

There’s more information out there on the history of Cinco de Mayo if you need it. I was just disappointed that I went out for beers and most NYers didn’t even know what cinco de mayo was… I just educated them as say – Hey! Its another reason to celebrate the defeat of the French. Raise a glass!

“The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile.”

“There are but two powers in the world, the sword and the mind. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the mind.”
– both quotes by Napoleon Bonaparte