Cinco de Mayo: The Line Between Appropriation and Acceptance
“…no es festejado en México pero aprovechado por Estados Unidos.” - Daniel Munoz
By Eliana Flores-Barber
It’s a beautiful thing what culture provides - family, a deep rooted connection to strangers, an appreciation for the past, and a sense of home. As cultures grow and spread, so do their marks in history.
Through each generation, more knowledge of the world is shared and many hold out hope that their cultures are understood and accepted enough to feel safe as they establish themselves in new places far from their motherland.
It is within that expansion however, where many learn that the line between acceptance and appropriation is very thin.
Here in the United States, the struggle that is cultural appropriation is quite common.
Whether it be “adopted” fashion styles, continuous use of stereotypes and outdated iconography, traditional cultural outfits turned into Halloween costumes, or the use of slang to seem trendy, there are copious amounts of examples of appropriation which many cultures have faced.
For our neighbors to the south, whose traditions are rooted in history and family, they have witnessed many parts of themselves converted into degrading stereotypes here in the United States. Some of which include dressing up in ponchos, sombreros, and mustaches all while heavily drinking margaritas, tequila, and beer.
The day which sees the most of the former is Cinco de Mayo.
With terms such as “Cinco de Drinko” coined to further push this idea and cities offering Mexican themed bar crawls, it has only resulted in further desensitization to the real issue at hand.
For many Mexicans their first exposure to this began in their youth.
Throughout his pre-teen and teenage years, having attended predominantly caucasian schools, Gabriel Sampedro was quick to understand that not all representations of his culture came out of respect.
“They [classmates] would wear sombreros, bring miniature Mexican flags that they would wave around, some of them would even bring maracas and rattle them in the hallways but I never encountered a Mexican US citizen celebrating Cinco de Mayo,” he says.
Baffled, he would walk through the halls questioning why his peers would be celebrating a day that in his culture was traditionally only celebrated in Puebla, Mexico - where the Battle of Puebla occurred on May 5th, 1862.
“I was pretty disturbed and it definitely irked me because I didn’t understand when I was younger what the big fuss was because it had never been mentioned in my household as a celebration… so it definitely just disturbed me that someone else would appropriate my family's culture and my heritage in that way,” he says.
As reported by the New York Times, California had been celebrating Cinco de Mayo since its first anniversary in 1863 as a way to raise money and aid Mexico’s fights against the French. As years went on, celebrations persisted as “a part of developing Mexican-American civil rights movement that started in the 1940s.”
In our current day and age, cultural pride is no longer the dominating reason for why celebrations here in the United States have boomed.
“It’s just an excuse to party. I don’t know if it’s the same as Saint Patrick's Day but I think it’s just an excuse for people to consume a bunch of Corona and other Mexican beers,” says Sampedro.
He later explains that in people picking and choosing which holidays they “celebrate” from his culture based on what is trendy further circulates inaccurate historical information on what days like Cinco de Mayo represent.
Along these same lines, Faith Bugenhagen’s displeasure and curiosity towards Cinco de Mayo celebrations has stemmed from one question ‘do you know what you’re celebrating?’
“With the amount of anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican, anti-Latino rhetoric we've seen especially in Texas, and I’m sure it's the same in California especially because of illegal immigration, I feel like most of those people wouldn’t be celebrating if they knew what it actually stood for because I feel like most people tend to be prejudicial especially in this day and age towards Latinos and Mexicans,” she explains.
The Battle of Puebla was a victory none saw coming. While it brought only a short-lived hopeful outlook on the war, it did instill in its people a sense of pride as the underdog army claimed its first victory.
To this day, that same pride is shared throughout the country on a more frequent basis. What separates a true cultural celebration from a trendy party is the heritage, history, and family which are being honored.
Through Bugenhagen’s experience, what would help bring some inkling of change to the blatant disregard of culture is educating oneself on the history of Cinco de Mayo and helping share that information with others.
She further explains, “I think that’s one of the main issues with Cinco de Mayo that I’ve seen and you know I'm not a very hateful person… but if you're already appropriating a holiday you don’t know anything about don’t wear a g*damn fake mustache and a sombrero or whatever you think is Mexican because that's not what real Mexicans look like now, it's not what real Mexicans look like back then… if you're already going to do that [celebrate this day] don’t put out a figure head that further exacerbates your ignorance.”
For some Mexican people, the previously mentioned has been part of an ongoing internal conflict, contemplating whether or not to take the U.S. celebrations at face value and know that at least people are speaking of Mexican culture in a somewhat positive light, or pursue the battle of fair and respected representation of their culture.
With the cycle of cultural negligence and stereotypes having become normalized in American celebrations of Cinco de Mayo, many young Mexicans are taking a stronger stance as to why they have opted out of celebrating this day.
To inquire more on Mexican’s perspectives on Cinco de Mayo, taking to social media, the following question was publicly posted: “Why have you chosen to or not not celebrate Cinco de Mayo as a Mexican individual living in the United States?”
Here is what people had to say:
“I do not celebrate Cinco de Mayo. It’s a number of personal and theoretical reasons. My personal reason is that I was never taught to celebrate Cinco de Mayo so it doesn’t hold any meaning to me. Similarly I don’t want to carry on with this tradition of simply getting drunk on Cinco de Mayo and that more of an ideological position. I hold Cinco de Mayo to the same standard that I hold St. Patrick’s Day in which I believe it is an appropriated celebration.”
Sisel Gelman
“It was just never something I celebrated at home [Mexico] and when I started going to school in the U.S. I was genuinely confused and surprised that Americans would celebrate Cinco de Mayo. At first I thought it was like a Mexican heritage day. Other kids started telling me it was Mexican Independence Day, which only confused me more since, as a kid, I was like I could have sworn that it was in September. As I grew up, I realized it was just an excuse for Americans to drink and appropriate Mexican culture. They whittled it down to tequila, tacos, sombreros, and ponchos. It honestly felt like a splat in the face when I came to that realization. It felt like my entire life was just a gimmick to Americans.”
Sol Conde Kalmijn
“I don’t celebrate Cinco de Mayo because I genuinely have no clue what it is meant to celebrate. It does not even involve the United States, yet a lot of people here celebrate it as if it did involve the U.S.”
Ariana Solorio
“I don’t see it as a day of celebrating, as I am not a big fan of war to begin with and I would rather celebrate Mexico’s actual independence as a day of triumph as opposed to celebrating one battle that took place in a larger war.”
Gabriel Sampedro
“I don’t celebrate it. I just personally feel like my family is a little more hippy Mexican, we’re from the poorer parts of Mexico, from the countryside. So I do think that a lot of my Mexican cultural practices are maybe a little more Mestizo than most Mexican-Americans. I feel like maybe a lot of people are tied to the super foundational cultural celebration. So I don’t know if it's just because we have a lot more mixed cultural and very spiritual type celebrations, like obviously we celebrate Día de Los Muertos and celebrations like it. So I’m not sure if our family is just unique in that way but like I said it just wasn’t taught to us that that was a big deal. It wasn’t taught to us to celebrate it.”
Faith Bugenhagen
“It's become a very Americanized holiday as an excuse to drink and party. Americans dress very stereotypical and Mexico’s independence isn’t until September.”
Jennifer Rodriguez
“I would say that I do not celebrate Cinco de Mayo in the U.S. because I feel as though this country culturally appropriated an important holiday. I always would see people just making it another day to drink and party and eat Mexican food and that always made me uncomfortable and sad because they don’t even know why Cinco de Mayo is important for Mexican people. My friends who were Mexican would always just laugh at the fact that people weren’t educated but also just saddened by that. I grew up in Mexico and lived there up until 8th grade. We used to celebrate and honor the Mexican army that fought in the war and would embrace our roots.”
Sky DiMuro
“Why I haven’t celebrated the 5 of May is slightly complicated. As most people that I’ve visited in Mexico see it as an American celebration that doesn’t pertain to them. Instead they celebrate the 15 of September. I also tend to agree that it’s more of an American “holiday” than it is a Mexican holiday. As a Mexican-American I feel that this holiday doesn’t really pertain to me as my family doesn’t celebrate it. As my dad said “no es festejado en México pero aprovechado por Estados Unidos [It is not celebrated in Mexico but taken advantage of by the United States]”
Daniel Munoz
“I’ve always seen it as an American holiday in the same type of way that we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day…The only times I actually would celebrate Cinco de Mayo was probably in my early 20’s as an excuse to go out drink Mexican beer and eat Mexican food. But I never celebrated it for what it’s actually for. Now September 15 and 16 is when I actually celebrate. Both for its Mexican meaning and because it’s my bday.”
Victoria Hicks
“Basically the battle of Cinco de Mayo was won and that’s cool and all but we still lost the series of battles that then led to Maximiliano showing up and the French trying to colonize. Like it was one battle out of many and then a couple years later Maximiliano and the French left but like that battle was just one of many and back in Mexico we don’t even get the day off for school.”
Julia de La Fontaine
“[I don’t celebrate] Simply because it’s not Mexico’s National Independence Day.”
Darlene Ortega
This is not to say that all who choose to celebrate are ill-intentioned. It is rooted in Mexican heritage to celebrate all that they have been through whether it be life, death, triumph, or tragedy. Whatever it may be, Mexican culture always has a way of making its people feel alive. However, to be understanding, mindful, and respectful of the culture that is not yours is of the utmost importance going forward in any celebration.