{"id":23753,"date":"2019-05-05T12:00:55","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T19:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/?p=23753"},"modified":"2021-05-05T06:52:31","modified_gmt":"2021-05-05T13:52:31","slug":"why-cinco-de-mayo-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2019\/05\/why-cinco-de-mayo-matters.html","title":{"rendered":"WHY CINCO DE MAYO MATTERS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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WHY CINCO DE MAYO MATTERS<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A Meditation on the Places In Between Places<\/em><\/p>\n

James Ishmael Ford<\/p>\n

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Today is Cinco de Mayo. It\u2019s one of our more peculiar civic holidays. Out on the inter webs, if you\u2019re moving in circles similar to mine, you\u2019re probably inundated with memes and video clips all making sure you know that today is not Mexican Independence Day. Good information. True fact.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the presentations are largely without nuance. Lots of finger waging, especially about the beer and college kids and some a bit older, wearing sombreros while engaging in conspicuous swilling of alcohol. Not a lot of love out on those interwebs for this holiday. And, don\u2019t get me wrong, the sombreros are at the very least tasteless, and given the givens of our times, slip into offensiveness of an ugly sort.<\/p>\n

However, Cinco de Mayo is a many splendored thing. It\u2019s a subject really worth knowing a bit about. I\u2019ll visit several in our time together. This said, mostly Cinco de Mayo reminds me of the \u201cDay of the Refugios,\u201d a poem by Alberto Rios. He\u2019s addressing another holiday. But the point within it, I believe, sings a profound truth, and one that fits Cinco de Mayo to a \u201ct.\u201d We heard part of that poem as one of this morning\u2019s \u201creadings.\u201d Here\u2019s the whole thing.<\/p>\n

I was born in Nogales, Arizona,
\nOn the border between
\nMexico and the United States.<\/em><\/p>\n

The places in between places
\nThey are like little countries
\nThemselves, with their own holidays<\/p>\n

Taken a little from everywhere.
\nMy Fourth of July is from childhood,
\nChildhood itself a kind of country, too.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a place that\u2019s far from me now,
\nA place I\u2019d like to visit again.
\nThe Fourth of July takes me there.<\/p>\n

In that childhood place and border place
\nThe Fourth of July, like everything else,
\nIt meant more than just one thing.<\/p>\n

In the United States the Fourth of July
\nIt was the United States.
\nIn Mexico it was the d\u00eda de los Refugios,<\/p>\n

The saint\u2019s day of people named Refugio.
\nI come from a family of people with names,
\nReal names, not-afraid names, with colors<\/p>\n

Like the fireworks: Refugio,
\nMargarito, Matilde, Alvaro, Consuelo,
\nHumberto, Olga, Celina, Gilberto.<\/p>\n

Names that take a moment to say,
\nNames you have to practice.
\nThese were the names of saints, serious ones,<\/p>\n

And it was right to take a moment with them.
\nI guess that\u2019s what my family thought.
\nThe connection to saints was strong:<\/p>\n

My grandmother\u2019s name\u2013here it comes\u2013
\nHer name was Refugio,
\nAnd my great-grandmother\u2019s name was Refugio,<\/p>\n

And my mother-in-law\u2019s name now,
\nIt\u2019s another Refugio, Refugios everywhere,
\nRefugios and shrimp cocktails and sodas.<\/p>\n

Fourth of July was a birthday party
\nFor all the women in my family
\nGoing way back, a party<\/p>\n

For everything Mexico, where they came from,
\nFor the other words and the green
\nTinted glasses my great-grandmother wore.<\/p>\n

These women were me,
\nWhat I was before me,
\nSo that birthday fireworks in the evening,<\/p>\n

All for them,
\nThis seemed right.
\nIn that way the fireworks were for me, too.<\/p>\n

Still, we were in the United States now,
\nAnd the Fourth of July,
\nWell, it was the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n

But just what that meant,
\nIn this border place and time,
\nit was a matter of opinion in my family.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Cinco de Mayo.<\/p>\n

Now, I think as we consider holidays of any sort, but especially those with a particular ethnic element we move into powerful and dangerous territory. We move into liminal spaces. And if we are willing to go along, we will come to a place where our dreams and our actions meet. And, we come to a place where dreams move freely from body to body, joining us in some mystery.<\/p>\n

That said, I feel some discomfort at how this particular holiday has become the Mexican St Patrick\u2019s Day. And I mean that with all the ills that follow that sad degeneration of someone\u2019s largely religious holiday mutated into shamrocks and green beer. Except now with sombreros, beer, and margaritas.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, lift a margarita toast if you want. Or, green beer on Saint Patrick\u2019s. Not that big a deal. Just be a little sensitive about what might hurt or offend. You know, common decency.\u00a0But, also this: there\u2019s something vastly more wonderful in this holiday for those willing to dig a tad deeper. And, then even more if we dig beyond that.<\/p>\n

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First, as we\u2019ve already said it is not Mexican Independence. That\u2019s observed on September 16th. Cinco de Mayo marks a day decades later. It marks the Battle of Puebla, when a poorly armed Mexican army defeated a much larger, by most estimates actually twice their size, better trained French army.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an interesting fact. Since the war where that battle was central, no country within the Americas has suffered an invasion from Europe. You could with considerable justice call it our Pan-American Independence Day. And, me, I think that\u2019s something worth celebrating.<\/p>\n

Alaso, there\u2019s more within this specific fact of that defeat of a French army. For one thing many scholars believe that if France prevailed in that battle there was a strong likelihood they would have later intervened in the American Civil War. Probably on the side of the Confederacy in order to break the Union blockade, which was playing havoc with French manufacture. Another reason we in the good old USofA have serious reason to celebrate this day.<\/p>\n

(And, just because it is cool to know, the leader of that ragtag Mexican army who put the last period on European invasions of our hemisphere, General Ignacio Zaragoza was born in what we today call the state of Texas. So, we can say he is ours, here, as well. Whether we are Mexican or from the States we can claim him.)<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looked into it you know how like for St Patrick\u2019s Day, which has not historically been a major holiday in Ireland, Cinco de Mayo is not a federal holiday in Mexico. Although it is observed in the state of Puebla where that battle happened. It is in fact mostly a holiday here in the United States. Actually, continuously observed here in California since 1863.<\/p>\n

Wikipedia tells us \u201cThe holiday crossed over from California into the rest of the United States in the 1950s and 1960s\u2026\u201d Writing for the New York Times last year, Claudio Cabrera & Louis Lucero II report how \u201cIn the early 1960s, many Mexican-American activists entrenched in the country\u2019s growing civil rights movement used the day as a source of pride.\u201d Okay. Then \u201cClose to two decades later, in 1989, an\u00a0ad campaignby an importer of beers like Modelo and Corona was introduced around the day. The campaign was initially targeted toward Latinos but eventually broadened with print and TV ads.\u201d<\/p>\n

So. Thank you, beer guys, for your crass move. While it definitely has led to the swilling of large amounts of alcohol, something good also came of it. At least, if we\u2019re willing to do a little work.<\/p>\n

First, it was genuinely a cultural event for Americans with ties to Mexico as well as immigrants. Gradually, it has been claimed by the rest of us. Today Cinco de Mayo is a major public celebration in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston, as well as many smaller cities. I love that it has even traveled around the world. For instance, it\u2019s become a holiday observed in Tokyo where it is celebration of the Americas and not just Mexico.<\/p>\n

For me Cinco de Mayo is so much a holiday for all of us. It\u2019s observed by immigrants who have become American as a nostalgic nod to the motherland. And, rather more, it has spread and become part of the tapestry of American celebration, a moment when we all can be Mexican as a part of our larger, complex identity.<\/p>\n

And with that my second and principal point. Here we have something of our true American uniqueness. Here we are not about blood and soil. We do not trace to a single ethnic group. Rather we are a gathering of many cultures and traditions. We are not a melting pot, as helpful as many found that image for a long time, but rather we are a feast, a glorious mosaic, a symphony. Upon closer examination of why our mix has worked so far, if imperfectly, but vastly better than pretty much any other place that includes multiple ethnicities, is because we\u2019re less \u201cout of many one,\u201d and instead we\u2019re more \u201cmany and one.\u201d Many and one. Kind of like that image in ancient Near Eastern religions, the Pleroma, the gathering of the many powers into one thing, the true divine.<\/p>\n

David Hayes-Bautista a UCLA professor in his 2012 book El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition\u00a0<\/em>argues, \u201cLet\u2019s bring it back to its roots as a civil rights and social justice commemoration,\u201d\u00a0Yes. And, I suggest as something more than that, as worthy and important as that is. Perhaps it is the very heart of why civil rights, why social justice. So, again, I find myself returning to that poem.<\/p>\n

The places in between places<\/em>
\nThey are like little countries
\nThemselves, with their own holidays
\nTaken a little from everywhere.<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s us. We are the place in between places, at least we are when we open our hearts and see who we are in another\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

In that childhood place and border place
\nThe Fourth of July, like everything else,
\nIt meant more than just one thing.<\/em><\/p>\n

This Cinco de Mayo can mean so much more than that brave battle. It tells us who we are: we a people gathered by stories rather than by blood. You know, actually that\u2019s blood of a sort. These stories, like that battle in Pueblo, they course through our veins, and give us a sense of who we are. And what justice is. And, why civil rights.<\/p>\n

Because, because dear ones, we are all connected.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s Cinco de Mayo! It is a time for us to celebrate the whole of Mexican culture, and as our holiday here in the States, how we all own a bit of it by virtue of being American in the big sense of that word, as well as in that more narrow use we usually give the word American. And, of course, of course, we are owned a bit, as well by virtue of our deep Mexican connections. Interdependence works that way. And it is something beautiful to behold.<\/p>\n

But just what that meant,<\/em>
\nIn this border place and time,
\nit was a matter of opinion in my family.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Our family.<\/p>\n

And, you know, in these days of such strife threatening the fabric of our country, with a president who ran and now governs on a platform of fear of the other and a tearing apart of the connections, perhaps it\u2019s a particularly good moment for us all to recall and to celebrate how big and complicated who we really are by virtue of being American. It is after all this experiment that is us, despite the many, many shortcomings, failures, and bad moves, this thing we call our Republic remains something of a miracle. Our way of being both many and one is too rare in this world of ours. But, it is also a beacon of hope.<\/p>\n

Shining bright, like those soldiers, ill-prepared, and outgunned, in Pueblo in 1862.<\/p>\n

Our family.<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n