Is It Margarita Day again?

This is a story I wrote for the Detroit Free Press in 2008.  I thought it would still be appropriate.  Enjoy!

The Cinco de Mayo celebration has become so popular in the U.S. and has become a marketing tool for many restaurants and establishments of spirits.  I have witnessed, and must admit participated in, unabashed celebration trying to capture an unclear and undefined glory of Mexican heroes of years past.  Many of my friends are party hounds, and I am totally amused by their attempts to make up the lyrics to songs like Cielito Lindo, La Cucaracha and El Rancho Grande, while at the same time trying to consume Margaritas faster than the person sitting next to them. 

What is Cinco de Mayo?  Is it someone’s excuse to have a party (and sell margaritas) in early spring when there just doesn’t seem to be any other holiday for an excuse?  At 49 days after Saint Patrick's Day, it’s the right amount of time for people to forget the after-effects of Saint Patrick’s Day drinking.  For many people, this is probably the case; however, I hope for some the basis for this celebration includes some real feelings for what the date signifies in Mexican history.

To me, Cinco de Mayo represents the beginning of the end for foreign occupation in Mexico.  After 340 years of foreign occupation and intervention that started with the Spanish in 1521, the French were defeated in the battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.  That battle started the war that ended May 15, 1867, when Maximillian, the Austrian monarch supported by the French to be the Emperor of Mexico, surrendered.

However, to really appreciate the true meaning of Cinco de Mayo, we must understand the suffering that Mexico had endured during the period of occupation.  It is estimated that the Spanish, during the 1520's, caused the death of 19 million native Mexicans.   We revolt at the atrocities of the Nazis; however, three times more native Mexicans died (in about the same period of time) than Jews murdered by the Nazis 420 years later.  During the Spanish occupation, those Mexicans who had survived lived in virtual slavery while the country was raped of its resources and left in bankruptcy. 

Spain's iron grip began to deteriorate in the mid 1700's.  Real resistance began to surface during the reign of the third Bourbon King of Spain, Charles III.  The Bourbon reforms revised the colonial government and economic structure, and a new concept of society was introduced, commerce and business, that began to change the structure of Mexican society.  The revolutions of France, Haiti and the United States gave rise to revolutionary thinking in Mexico and in September 16, 1810, a priest from the city of Dolores, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, began the revolution for independence against Spain.  The war for independence continued until September 27, 1821, when the treaty of Córdova was signed that recognized Mexican independence under the terms of the Plan of Iguala, which established a constitutional monarchy.  This monarchy lasted for a little over a year when, on December 1, 1822,  Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana Peréz de Labrón, rose against the monarchy and proclaimed the republic.  In 1824, the Constitutional Congress established the constitution that formed the United Mexican States (the official name of Mexico).  Nicolas Bravo succeeded the first President, Guadalupe Victoria, in 1827.  The third President, Vicente Guerrero, is responsible for the abolition of slavery in 1829, and that same year, Santa Ana finally succeeded in expelling all the Spanish troops from Mexican territory. 

Twenty years of war had left Mexico economically weak; however, the process begun a new organization of the county.  In an attempt to bring government control to the northern regions, Mexico placed restrictions on immigration and prohibited slavery.  This caused the Americans living in Texas to declare independence in 1835 and join the U.S. in 1836.  However, the young, ambitious U.S. wanted more land and resources, as a result, the Mexican-American war began in 1840.  By 1848 more than half of the land that once belonged to Mexico, the current southwest had become part of the U.S.

By the time the land was lost to the U.S., the Mexican effort to keep foreigners out was not over yet.  Early in the 1850's a move was begun to moralize Mexican politics.  In the Mexican version of the French revolution against feudalism and privileges, the Reform Laws that abolished inequalities and put controls on the church were established.  Juárez won the presidency, and with a bankrupt country, declared a moratorium on all foreign debt payments.  The French, Spanish, and British were angered with the moratorium and, in October 1861, sent a united military expedition to occupy Mexico and get paid. 

After deliberations and a better understanding of the situation, the British and Spaniards recalled their men.  The French, however, decided to implement their real plan, which was to take over Mexico.  The French probably believed that after 50 years of fighting, Mexico would be war-weary.  President Juárez sent General Ignacio Zaragoza and his troops to fight the French, and in the City of Puebla, on May 5, 1862, Zaragoza's army defeated the foreigners.  Hence, the celebration of Cinco de Mayo was born.  The war continued for five years,  and during that time the French sent Emperor Fernindad Maximillian Joseph of Austria to rule over Mexico.  The Mexicans did not want a foreigner governing them.  On May 15, 1867 Maximillian surrendered.  He was tried and then executed on June 19, 1867.  There has been no foreign occupation of Mexico since.  At least I thought that had been no foreign occupation until a friend informed me that Americans and Europeans are retiring down there by the thousands and are populating all the resort areas.  But, I guess this doesn’t count as politically motivated occupation.

So, as I sit there having a few margaritas with my friends, I wonder if they get the same chills just to think of all that history.  I smile listening to their attempt to sing Mexican songs, I put the glass to my lips silently toast those defenders of long ago and wondered how I would have sounded speaking French.