By: Ernest Gurulé
Who could have imagined that just a few decades ago—when the date was barely on the radar—-that Cinco de Mayo celebrations could explode across a landscape and weave themselves into the American fabric? But today, the date May 5th, marking the 1862 Battle of Puebla, when an outmanned, out-gunned Mexican force defeated an occupying French army, has been elevated to an American rite of spring. Ironically, Cinco de Mayo is a bigger celebration in the U.S. than in Mexico, the country where the battle was fought.
The battle still remains an important moment in Mexican history. But in the United States it’s taken on a whole new meaning and dimension.
While not an official holiday like the Fourth of July or Labor Day, Cinco de Mayo, nonetheless, has set down roots in cities rarely thought of as having a Mexican connection. But as the Mexican and Mexican-American diaspora has unfolded, a Cinco de Mayo event can be found as easily as tossing a dart onto a U.S. map.
Today Cinco de Mayo celebrations are as likely to be found south of the Mason-Dixon line in a Biloxi or Birmingham as they are above it, in a Boston or Billings. Basically, they’re everywhere.
But like so many zigs and zags that COVID necessitated over the last couple of years, Cinco de Mayo in Colorado also had to plot a new direction. The virus caused wholesale cancellations in some places and resulted in undernourished celebrations in others. “We have had to modify our event for the past three years,” said Pueblo Cinco de Mayo organizer and elementary school teacher, Denise Torrez. The normal
weekend-long celebratory events at the city’s Bessemer Park, ‘ground zero’ for southern Colorado’s biggest Cinco celebration, took on a different complexion.
COVID turned down the volume on Cinco de Mayo in some places to inaudible or nearly inaudible levels. No bands, no dancing, no children breaking piñatas, no face painting on cherubic young faces. It was Cinco on life support, said Torrez.
A ‘Plan B,’ that had never been considered suddenly became a necessity. In Pueblo, organizers found a way to turn lemons into limonada, at least as best they could.
“In 2020 we provided school supplies for families who were suddenly thrust into figuring out how to help their children with remote learning. Last year and this year, we are having a food giveaway though a partnership with Servicios de La Raza out of Denver,” Torrez said.
But even though today’s Cinco de Mayo has come to be known as the precursor celebration to summer, it has not always been this way. In fact, it wasn’t that long ago when the day came and went without so much as a mention, even in a place like Pueblo where the city’s population is nearly half Latino. Then along came a tempest of a woman who rang the bell and got the party started, said Torrez. That person was the late Rita Martinez who died in 2020.
“She constantly reminded us that this was a ‘Day of Education,’ as well as celebration.” Martinez activism both in marshalling the elements for Cinco de Mayo as well as other societal issues impacting Latinos, Torrez recalled, was a fifty year commitment. Her passing left a left a void. “We scrambled to figure out how to put this local event on without her guidance.” But even without Martinez leadership, Torrez said, “we united.”
But there is another side to today’s Cinco de Mayo. In so many ways it has been hijacked by the food and beverage industry who see through the lens of a branding event.
Beer sales, especially Mexican brands—Corona, Tecate, Dos XX— for the May 5th festivities today rank ahead of the Super Bowl and St. Patrick’s Day. Avocados, another favorite Mexican item, come close to the top spot, too. Next weekend, Americans will consume more than 80 million pounds of avocados.
But there is also a growing component to this thoroughly Mexican and Mexican-American commemoration that may preserve and honor its beginnings. It’s the celebration of the cerebral. And a special partnership in this vein just may be the perfect union.
Southern Colorado’s El Pueblo Museum will mark Cinco de Mayo with ‘Hecho en Colorado,’ a traveling art and cultural exhibit owned by Denver’s Abarca Family. This event debuts on Friday, May 3rd.
The exhibit, put together by Adrianna Abarca, owner and founder of the Denver Latino Cultural Arts Center and El Pueblo, will feature a treasure chest of artistic offerings that reflects the deep cultural roots and rich contributions to the arts by artists of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico.
‘Hecho en Colorado,’ said Abarca, is “a combination of educating a new audience and also bringing a sense of pride in the people who live the culture.” As important, she said, the exhibit will also expose a whole new dimension of culture to younger generations while providing a more historical context to the gaiety and frivolity so often connected with Cinco de Mayo.
“There are numerous forms of artistic expressions represented in the exhibit,” said Abarca. “There’s paintings, poetry, spoken word, writing, photography, print making and music.”
No one will leave the exhibition, she promised, without taking with them a new knowledge and understanding of Cinco de Mayo or the history of the land upon which they stand.
Many confuse Cinco de Mayo national celebrations with Mexican Independence Day, which is celebrated in Mexico on September 16th. Cinco de Mayo is an American-born holiday, celebrating Latino/Hispanic culture.
The exhibit is free. A full description of ‘Hecho en Colorado’ can be seen at www.lcac-denver.org/hecho-en-colorado.
