On this classic Mexican holiday, we Americans eat sad excuses for Mexican food, wear sombreros, and wave around cheap maracas with reckless abandon. We laugh and stuff ourselves with tacos and queso, wearing colorful ponchos and not once thinking about the actual holiday that is supposed to be celebrated. More importantly, we don't think about the people that this holiday is meant to commemorate or the country's people as they stand in America.
Cinco de Mayo is the celebratory date commemorating the Mexican victory over French forces in 1862. It brought hope to the people of Mexico and is still a great source of pride for Mexicans today. They observe this through military parades, traditional Mexican symbols, and dance.
However, in the United States, we don't even know the truth behind the holiday; most people think it is Mexico's Independence Day. We glorify the Mexican-American culture that we accept as true when it is not. We wear racist sombreros and ponchos, and eat distasteful fast food labeled as "Mexican". We're very good at taking things that aren't ours and pretending it's okay.
Today, we continue to celebrate this in a way that isn't truly celebrating the holiday itself, even though its' people aren't even wanted in our country. The deportation of Mexicans has left millions living in fear, always awaiting the day they will be dragged out of their homes they so painstakingly built from the ground up, away from their families, away from their lives, never to be seen again.
America has even more so begun to show its ugly side - the face that turns its nose up at other countries, where its own President is a sexual offender that advocates uprooting undocumented immigrants without a second thought.
Cinco de Mayo shouldn't be yet another American excuse to gorge ourselves on fake food, get drunk, and pretend to uphold a culture that isn't ours. We have to start being more culturally sensitive and think about our impact. How does our version of Cinco de Mayo invalidate the true meaning behind the holiday? How does it affect the Mexicans all over the world? How does it support our willingness to stand by while its people are uprooted from their homes in the United States?
We are growing, yes. But in what direction?