Cinco de Mayo is quickly becoming another St. Patrick's Day. Increasingly, every May 5th, everyone is a little bit Mexican.
But like any popular holiday, our perception of Cinco de Mayo is rife with egregious myths. This fact alone leads to a particularly interesting, if often overlooked, question (especially in the social studies): how should teachers address common myths and misconceptions in the classroom? Curriculum, textbooks, and even tests present students with half-truths on many occasions. Should we go along with these falsehoods? Should we devote time to debunking them? Should we let students investigate and formulate their own interpretations? Why are we teaching "wrong" history? Who even decides what history is "right" and what is "wrong"?
I can't even pretend to be enough of an expert to begin to fully answer some of these questions; however, I do believe that these are questions not being asked often enough. I am of the mind that we should involve students as much as possible in formulating their own worldviews. Of course, I'm also enough of a nerd that I love debunking common misconceptions; in honor of that, here are a few busted myths about Cinco de Mayo.
Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day. No, that would be September 16 (1810). Cinco de Mayo, rather, is a commemoration of the defeat of French forces at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. It marks the time period of the French Restoration, when Napoleon III drove President Benito Juarez out of office and installed Maximilian I as puppet-emperor of Mexico in 1864. The holiday, then, commemorates a mostly symbolic victory; Mexico won the battle, but eventually lost the war. This Restoration regime lasted only until 1867, when Napoleon III withdrew from Mexico and President Juarez re-established a legitimate government.
Cinco de Mayo is not an Hispanic holiday. Rather, it is a holiday specific to Mexico and even more specific to the State of Puebla. This is not an holiday for the whole Hispanic diaspora; it is specific to Mexico.
Cinco de Mayo is not a huge holiday in Mexico. It's actually probably more widely celebrated in the U.S. than it is in Mexico. In fact, in Mexico, the day is not even designated as a federal holiday. While in Puebla there are military parades and recreations of the event, for most of Mexico today is just a regular day.
And so, to end on a bit lighter (if slightly immature) note, I present to you this pie chart about our perceptions of Cinco de Mayo. (Because who doesn't like pie charts?)
(Source consulted: Cinco de Mayo - The History Channel. http://www.history.com/topics/cinco-de-mayo)
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