Tomorrow, millions of Americans will head right from work to the bars to “celebrate” Cinco de Mayo. Margaritas and cervezas will flow freely, while taco and nacho bars will be replenished frequently. Meanwhile in Mexico, it will be Thursday.
Ask the average Cinco de Mayo celebrant here what the day is all about and they are likely to tell you that it’s “Mexican Independence Day” or “It’s the Mexican version of the 4th of July!!” Except it’s not. Mexican Independence Day is actually September 16th. Cinco de Mayo is a minor holiday marking an outnumbered Mexican army victory over superior French forces at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. And for the most part, it not that big a deal in Mexico itself. This is where I need to point out as a person with German heritage, that if I celebrated the Fatherland’s military victories over France, I’d be getting hammered half the days on the calendar. I also need to point out that France came back and defeated the Mexican army a year later and laid siege to Mexico City–so it’s not like the Battle of Cinco de Mayo turned the tide toward a major Mexican victory in the war.
And yet, here we are in the US treating a minor holiday in another country like it’s the party event of the season. But when you think about it, that is what we Americans do best: taking someone else’s holiday and turning into an over-the-top boozefest in the name of a “cultural celebration”.
The best example of this is St Patrick’s Day where people in Ireland may attend a church service and raise a pint afterwards–while in the US, bars open at 6:00 am, serve Budweiser with green food coloring in it and call it “Irish beer”, along with green eggs and ham–which is from Dr Seuss–not Ireland. Americans who go to Ireland expecting this huge celebration on March 17th are inevitably disappointed, while the Irish come to the US to be amazed by how big a deal is made about an English guy that brought Roman Catholicism to their island.
Or consider the city of New Orleans–which has built an entire culture and economy on what was originally a three-day French celebration of Shrovetide and turned it into a months-long celebration of drunkeness and debauchery called Mardi Gras. As the comedian John Oliver said in a feature on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight”: “Wow, these people are really excited to give up chocolate for 40 days!”
This desire to have “our own day” has even led to what I’ll call “The Holiday Wars”. Italian-Americans, feeling left out of the cultural celebration scene started pushing Columbus Day as “their day”. While he sailed under the Spanish flag, Christopher Columbus was from Genoa–which is now part of modern-day Italy. So the day Columbus set foot in Hispaniola became the “Italian holiday” in the US. And soon we had parades, and kids had the day off of school, and there was no mail delivery, and furniture stores had another excuse for a “huge sale”. But then came cancel culture–and some Americans said that Columbus should not be celebrated–even if the Italians love him. States are now recognizing the second Monday in October as “Indigenous Peoples Day” instead. And Italians feel they are being “persecuted” because they can’t have “their holiday” anymore. And while we are keeping “Indigenous Peoples Day” a solemn remembrance now, it’s just a matter of time before some beer or liquor company finds a way to cash in and turn it into another reason to party.
And speaking of solemn, nothing is guaranteed to generate more immediate social media backlash than clueless politicians and corporations posting “Happy Passover!” or “Happy Ramadan!!”. I’m amazed that there isn’t yet a Twitter account called “When Virtue Signaling Goes Horribly Wrong” to detail the thousands of examples of this cluelessness disguised as inclusiveness.
The ultimate irony is that the one cultural holiday that IS based on drinking, Bavarian Oktoberfest, is actually played down here in the US. In Munich and surrounding towns, the celebration runs for 16 to 18 consecutive days!!! Attendees consume 1.7-million gallons of beer brewed specifically for the event. The brewers set up gigantic tents with row after row of tables and chairs, while barmaids bring armfuls of giant steins and mugs filled with Hefeweissens. But here in the US, Oktoberfest is a one or two day event, and maybe a couple of blocks of the streets are cordoned off or you have a band or two play in the park–and everyone talks about how “family friendly” it is.
So for all you being “Mexican for a day” or “Irish for a day” why don’t you try hanging with the big dogs and be “German for two and a half weeks”?
