Today is May 5, a widely recognized holiday in the United States. Cinco de Mayo has been enjoyed by millions of Americans as a day to eat our tasty tacos and drink fine Mexican tequila. People flock to local Mexican and Tex-Mex restaurants on May 5th for bowls of salsa and chips and take turns passing around the sequined sombreros and taking selfies. Call me cynical, but I think this kind of celebrating is degrading and adds insult to injury. We have detained thousands of our Mexican neighbors at the border, exploited their labor here in our country, and denied them rights to citizenship and equality under our laws.
Cinco de Mayo is, in point of fact, a real holiday for the Puebla people. They won an important victory over the colonizing French in 1862. In a show of solidarity, the US celebrated this victory with Mexico in 1863. I think I could eat tacos and nachos every day if I wasn’t always trying to watch my weight. But I do think that if we are going to celebrate this day, co-opt it for our eating and drinking pleasure, then we should at least recognize and reflect on the reason for the holiday. We should know our history and think about how and why we are allies or not to our southern neighbors. I do hope that people will patronize their local Mexican establishments today, but I also hope that they will think about our relationship to those humans who provide that food and who suffer under our laws and order.
life of practice 