Feliz Cinco de Mayo!
Instead of putting on a fake mustache, sombrero, or a poncho and pulling out every Spanish word that you know (relax Kyle, it’s just cheese you don’t have look so proud because you ordered “queso” and said “gracias”) maybe learn some facts about the holiday, Mexican people, and Mexico itself.
* Indigenous Mexicans ARE Native Americans, we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.
* Modern Mexicans are some of the most genetically diverse people in the world.
* Cinco de Mayo isn’t really a thing in Mexico. (But it very much is in the Mexican spirit to find any excuse to drink and party)
* Mexico’s defeat of Imperial France cut off a lifeline of arms and supplies to the confederacy.
* Mexico invited American to come settle in Mexican territory. The Mexican Constitution didn’t allow for slavery so the white Southerners got upset, overthrew the Mexicans and formed the Republic of Texas. If you ever hear a Texan say “Remember the Alamo!” just remember that the Texan settlers that died there had a vested interest in maintaining control of Texas territory so they could continue to use slave labor.
* Tenochtitlán (present day Mexico City) the Mexica (Aztecs) had the largest concentration of people in Mesoamerican history. These people had working sewage systems, aqueducts to provide fresh drinking water, floating gardens, city planning, complex architecture. The Mexica were astronomers, they had calendars more efficient than modern day calendars, the were surgeons, mathematicians, and artists. They were also extremely hygienic, they bathed on average four times a week, as opposed to the European once a year.
* During the Great Depression because of economic conditions, Mexican “immigrants” were seen as an economic burden so the US Government forced over 2 million Mexicans out of the country without due process even though 60% were American citizens. It wasn’t just Mexicans either, it was anyone that “looked Mexican.” aka brown people.
* The overwhelming majority of cowboys in the U.S. were Indigenous, Black, and/or Mexican persons. The omnipresent white cowboy is a Hollywood studio concoction meant to uphold the mythology of white masculinity.
* In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s young Mexican Americans and other racial minorities (African Americans, Central Americans, and Filipino Americans mainly) frequently wore Zoot Suits that were made popular by the jazz musicians of the time. The suits were seen as unpatriotic because there was a wool ration at the time and white Americans were resentful of the flamboyant zoot suits which were made of wool. Zoot-suiters were targeted with extreme violence fueled by racism and bored aggression, patriotic motives were used to justify the attacks. The media fueled popular prejudice and hatred by portraying all Pachucos (Mexican Americans zoot suiters) as gangsters and thugs. The Zoot Suit Riot’s occurred in the month of June 1943 in Los Angeles when the zoot-suiters finally chose to fight back against this unjust harassment that the American servicemen stationed in Southern California actively initiated.
* Eugenical Sterilization in America stretches back to the 1930s and lasted all the way up to the 1980s and was used as a means of controlling “undesirable” populations aka - Latinx (mostly Mexican and Puerto Rican), Black, Asian, Native Americans, the disabled, the mentally ill, the poor, and single unwed mothers.
*Slaveholders knew that enslaved people were escaping to Mexico so the U.S. tried to get Mexico to sign a fugitive slave treaty. Mexico refused to sign such a treaty, insisting that all enslaved were free when they set foot on Mexican soil.
* Mexicans were also lynched in large numbers during the Jim Crow era.
* Mexico and Mexican Americans attributed to allied victories in World War II. Mexico also allowed the U.S. military to register and conscript Mexican nationals living in the United States during the war. According to one estimate, around 15,000 Mexican nationals served in the U.S. military during World War II, many of whom may have been motivated by the offer to apply for U.S. citizenship in return for their service. Of these, some 1,492 are believed to have been killed, imprisoned, injured or disappeared.
* Mexico’s own elite air squadron, known as the Aztec Eagles, flew dozens of missions alongside the U.S. Air Force during the liberation of the Philippines in 1945.
* Anthony C. Acevedo was the first Mexican American recognized as a Holocaust survivor. Millions of non-Jewish people were victims of Hitler’s regime, Like Jewish people, the non-Jewish community were seen as “undesirables.” One of those undesirables was Anthony C. Acevedo, a military medic for the United States. He documented life and death at a Nazi concentration camp.
* On Jan. 6, 1945, Acevedo and 350 U.S. soldiers were captured during the Battle of the Bulge and sent to a Nazi prison and labor camp. While at the prison camp, Acevedo risked his own life by keeping a journal and documenting every death he witnessed.
* On April 23, 1945 the war ended and out of the 350 soldiers captured only 120 survived including Acevedo.
I hope you learned something from this post. We aren’t the brown scourge that Trump paints us as. I will celebrate this day by learning the history of my people, celebrating their accomplishments and sacrifices, and maybe I’ll take a shot of tequila in their honor. 🇲🇽
Happy Mexican Independence Day! Feliz día de la independencia! 🇲🇽
This should be broadcasted to everyone in the U.S. it seems color has always been the issue here in America.
