Donoreo Still seems weird, especially in the current world, that more Americans celebrate a Mexican “Holiday” that hardly anyone in Mexico celebrates.
Yes, as the article above says:
Today, almost nothing happens in Mexico on Cinco de Mayo. All Mexicans go to work or school, and with the exception of the city of Puebla, the day goes largely unnoticed. But across the border in the US, the day can take on carnival proportions. In the 1990s, for example, the Cinco de Mayo parade in Los Angeles drew crowds of up to half a million people.
:
In the 1960s, the Chicano movement—part of the broader civil rights struggle in the US, but specifically focused on Mexican-Americans—gave new impetus to the holiday. Leaders like César Chávez and Dolores Huerta used Cinco de Mayo as a symbol of Mexican resistance, re-emphasizing its cultural aspects to promote Chicano identity and pride, while the growing flow of Mexican migrants to the US strengthened and gave a social base to the festival. This focus on Mexican heritage and Cinco de Mayo led many Americans to wrongly believe the day marked Mexico’s Independence Day, actually celebrated in September.
But, like most holidays, it’s been commercialized now:
Ultimately, it wasn’t activists but corporations that gave Cinco de Mayo its modern identity. By the late 1980s, large companies recognized the day’s marketing potential, first targeting Latino consumers by sponsoring musical performances and cultural events, and later appealing to the general population. Mexican beer companies, looking to expand their share of the US market, seized on the opportunity. They made Cinco de Mayo one of the biggest drinking holidays in America—even if most people misunderstood its origins. When asked what “Cinco de Mayo” commemorates, many incorrectly guessed “Mexico’s Independence Day” or “the end of French rule in Mexico.”
