Cinco de Mayo: Another Pointless Holiday for Boozing

Cinco de Mayo!

...What a pointless freaking holiday. For some reason, a lot of people think that it's like America's Forth of July, that is, the Mexican independence day. Well, it isn't. Mexico's Independence Day is El Dieciséis de Septiembre (Sixteenth of September). ...And even if it did, it still doesn't make much sense for us to celebrate it. I mean, we don't celebrate Canada Day on July 1^st. (Too close to the Forth of July, maybe?)

So what exactly does the Fifth of May signify? Well, Cinqo de Mayo celebrates a victory in a war against the French. A war the Mexicans eventually lost.

A victory over the French. Wow. There's a cause for celebration there. It's a national holiday in Mexico but not a big one outside of Puebla, where the battle took place.

I don't even think they get the day off.

So why is Cinco de Mayo so big on this side of the Rio Grande?

Well, somewhere in the 1960's something called the "Chicano Student Movement" decided they needed a holiday to drink José Cuervo to celebrate their ancestery.

El Dieciséis de Septiembre was too close to the beginning of the school year to organize a decent party to effectively organize rallies and celebrations. So, one near the end of the year was used instead. Hence, the rise of Cinco de Mayo.

Eventually, Cinco de Mayo began to be used as an excuse to eat burritos and get piss ass drunk on margaritas and tequila celebrated by those not of Mexican ancestry.

This is quite similar to the evolution of American's celebration of St. Patrick's day, which is used by you tea-swilling crumpet-munching heathens of non-Érie decent to dye rivers green and get piss ass drunk on weak American beer also dyed green for some damnable reason, desecrating the reason for the holiday in the first place celebrated by those of Non-Irish decent.

Once again proof that as Americans we will celebrate anything if it gives us an excuse to drink.

'Til next time, rock on.