The Holiday We Half-Knew

Today is Cinco de Mayo. Growing up, I didn't understand much about it beyond barbecues, family get-togethers, and a general sense of Mexican pride. If I'm being honest, I thought for a long time that it was Mexican Independence Day.

Being raised in a Mexican household in the great USA is a curious experience, but that's a story for another time.

It wasn't until middle and high school that I started asking real questions. When was Mexican Independence Day? Why did we celebrate Cinco de Mayo? Why didn't we celebrate American Revolutionary battles the same way? I started realizing that these were all things I needed to look into and learn on my own. (support your local libraries)

What I found came down to two things: the Battle of Puebla, and beer.

In 1862, a small, outnumbered Mexican force defeated the French army at the Battle of Puebla. It was a genuine underdog story. What's less known is that the Confederacy was actively seeking French support during the Civil War at the time so Mexico's victory was a blow to France and a setback for the Confederacy simultaneously. One battle, two timelines. You're welcome.

In Mexico, the victory became an annual celebration mostly in the state of Puebla. It was acknowledged but not widely observed across the rest of Mexico.

A century later, something shifted on this side of the border.

Leading into the 1960s, a wave of Mexican culture and identity was growing in the United States mostly concentrated in Southern California but spreading. For those of us in Northern Colorado, this era is personal in a different way. It was the height of the Bracero Program, which brought Mexican immigrants, many of them from Chihuahua to Weld County to work the sugar beet fields. (Much love to my parents and grandparents).

Out of that era came the Chicano movement. A proud, deliberate reckoning with what it meant to be both Mexican and American. After all, we didn't cross the border. The border crossed us.

It was the Chicano movement that found the Battle of Puebla and started running with it. Here was a story of resistance, of an underdog victory, of refusing to be overtaken by a larger power. It resonated. Cinco de Mayo celebrations took root in communities throughout Southern California and started to grow.

Then came the late 1980s.

The early part of the decade had been rough. A recession, shifting consumer habits, and a growing health consciousness. This meant alcohol consumption was dipping, and the beer industry needed a new story to tell. They found one in the celebration of Cinco de Mayo.

Anheuser-Busch and Miller built out dedicated Hispanic marketing departments and began sponsoring Cinco de Mayo events in Los Angeles. Coors spent over $60 million courting Latino consumers, in part to repair a reputation damaged by federal discrimination findings. Corona's importers, rather than claiming ownership of a Mexican holiday outright, simply put Corona everywhere. Ads showed Mexicans celebrating with a Corona in hand, lime wedge on the rim. Association, repetition, and a cold beer was all that was needed.

The message was elegant in its simplicity: Corona is Mexican, Cinco de Mayo is Mexican, therefore Corona is the drink of Cinco de Mayo. By 1996, that connection had largely solidified in the American consumer's mind.

There was some pushback. Activists saw clearly what was happening, a community's cultural celebration being repackaged as a sales vehicle, with little regard for the health and social costs that heavy alcohol marketing carries in Latino communities. But the machine had momentum, and the marketing and branding had done its job almost too well. 

Today, Cinco de Mayo is one of the largest drinking holidays in the United States and generates more beer and alcohol sales than the Super Bowl. It is celebrated more loudly here than Mexico's actual Independence Day, which begins on the night of September 15th and carries into the 16th.

And somewhere around 90% of Americans who celebrate it cannot tell you what it actually commemorates.

I'm not writing this to stop the celebrations. Celebrate. Eat the tacos. Enjoy the sun. Culture should be celebrated.

But culture should also be understood.

What I'd ask is this: take a minute to know the story behind the holiday. Know that what many of us Chicanos, Latinos, Mexicanos grew up half-celebrating was, in large part, a marketing campaign built on top of our own culture. A culture that most of us never fully learned about in school, if we learned about it at all. Don't belittle anyone for not knowing.

Learn together. Rise up together.

Every person and every culture has a story worth telling. Every story deserves a book and a place on the shelf.

Cheers. Keep learning. Keep growing. Keep going.