First of all, it’s important to know that today, Cinco de Mayo, is NOT Mexican Independence Day, which is September 16, 1810.
Nevertheless, it marks a significant date in history when the French army was defeated in Puebla on May 5, 1862, marking an important symbolic moment to curtail Napoleon Bonaparte’s designs on establishing a monarchy in North America. When you visit Puebla you can still see the bullet holes in front of the house occupied by General Ignacio Zaragoza.
Most of us know Cinco de Mayo as a U.S. celebration of Latino culture. There are 44.3 million Latinos living in the U.S. according to the 2008 census representing 15 percent of the population.
Perhaps we know Cinco de Mayo as the name of a favorite local Tex-Mex restaurant. Isn’t there a Cinco de Mayo Mexican restaurant in your town? There is in mine! And today, many will of us will welcome the occasion to have a party and raise a toast to our southern neighbor with a beer or Margarita. What are you doing tonight?
But there’s much more to it than that, according to historian David Hayes-Bautista, as reported today by CNN and Reza Gostar in GlendoraPatch. It seems that Cinco de Mayo was a rallying cry in the U.S. by Latinos against the elitist French monarchy, which was sympathetic to the Confederacy during the Civil War. At that time, Latinos sided with the Union, fearing that a Confederacy win would expand slavery to include them.
Puebla is Angelopolis, City of Angels
Dr. Hayes-Bautista, who is director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture, has uncovered the first groundbreaking research that links the celebration of liberation for Mexicans with the U.S. Civil War and the hope that the Union would prevail. The win at the Battle of Puebla by the Mexican freedom fighters against the elitists energized many Americans early in the war when the Confederacy was powerful, especially Latinos.
So, as you raise your glass with a hearty Salud, recall that Latinos volunteered to serve in the Union Army in order to preserve freedom, independence, and fight for racial justice.
http://glendora.patch.com/articles/history-of-cinco-de-mayo-a-mexican-or-american-holiday
Linking Oaxaca Past to Present Through Arts and Design
The New York Times featured Oaxaca as a living example of how to best marry past and present in its June 15, 2013 feature story, The Past Has a Presence Here written by Edward Rothstein in The Critic’s Notebook in the Times Arts & Design section. Says Rothstein, “In the museums and gardens of Oaxaca, Mexico, unlike those of the United States, the character of history is unvarnished.”
History converges in Oaxaca, Mexico because her indigenous people have survived for millenia despite conquest, wars, disease, poverty and malnutrition. The archeological ruins of Monte Alban and Mitla are evidence through extraordinary physical remains of the building and destruction of great civilizations. Descendants live in the valleys below with language, culture and art intact. Her food — mole, squash, corn, beans, chiles — are also a living testimony to creativity and adaptation in a harsh land.
Rothstein uses a good part of his “column inches” to discuss the importance and impact of the Ethnobotanical Gardens designed and developed by Alejandro de Avila B. It is a living centerpiece of Oaxaca’s cultural history — a compendium of native plants that people have and continue to depend on for fiber, natural color, shelter, and beauty.
Oaxaca is rich in tradition that has not died out and is only accessible through memory and museum exhibitions.
He goes on to say, “But how different all of this is from images of the indigenous past north of the border! There are few areas where evidence of ancient state-size power exists (mainly in the 2,000-year-old relics of societies that once thrived along the Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers). There are few places where cultural continuity is even remotely clear, and where ancient languages are still widely spoken. Even before colonization, cultures disappeared, leaving behind neither oral traditions nor written records. And forced migrations and centuries of warfare so disrupted native traditions that the past now seems little more than an identity-affirming fantasy.”
I think of the Taos pueblo, the Four Corners in Utah, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado, the dioramas and exhibitions in the Museum of the American Indian, annual Indiana pow-wows of the Potawatomi to bring far-flung tribal members together, and the painful history of exile, annihilation and reservations.
What do you think of when you read Rothstein’s article?
And, yes, Oaxaca is safe. I am on an airplane today to Mexico City, then Puebla. I’ll pick back up on my posts in a few days.
Plus, thanks to friend Leslie Fiske Larson for bringing this NY Times article to my attention! Leslie spent several months volunteering at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca and knows a great pushcart fruit stand right around the corner! Yummy papaya.
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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Oaxaca travel, Travel & Tourism
Tagged art, blogsherpa, culture, design, garden, Mexico, Oaxaca