Cinco de mayo

Cinco de mayo
May 8, 2011
By: Gina Roman




To reminiscence about 5 de mayo is to dig deep down to the true origin of this specific holiday. To this day many people are left with a huge question mark on their heads because the majority of Latinos and Mexicans and the rest of the population always seem to get Independence Day (Celebrated on Septemeber 16) and 5 de mayo mixed up.
I won’t get into depth with this holiday but what catches my attention is that 5 de mayo is more celebrated in the U. S. People go out in the streets flashing their Mexican flags, they go out for a drink with their friends or family, they carry small green, white and red flag shaped pins.
What’s funny though is that here in Mexico not a single soul celebrates this holiday. Other than the fact of school being out, everything else is pretty normal. In fact I had a very normal day… I’m trying to think where I was on 5 de mayo. Oh yes! I met a good friend of mine for breakfast who is very eager to learn English and she wants to start meeting with me more often so we can practice. After that I went to meet a very demanding client that I did a translation for. After making ten thousand changes and printing it four times, he was quite content with the work. Then I came home and carried on with my work as usual.

The night after 5 de mayo I talked to one of my three best lifetime friends and she was indeed under the impression that Independence Day takes place on 5 de mayo. She said that when people ask her why this holiday is so important, she replies that it’s because it is Independence Day. I wasn’t surprised so I decided to play a joke on her. I said, next time someone asks tell them that Mexico and whoever you want, fought for a kilo de tortillas but the reason why they had such a tough confrontation was because this wasn’t just any kilo de tortillas, it was a “special” kilo de tortillas because it was hand made on a tortillera.
That’s why this holiday has been so important ever since. She was laughing so hard that she couldn’t stop.