Cinco De Mayo is an important day for our Mexican brothers and sisters to the south. Any team taking El Tri lightly in World Cup 2014 may not be advancing with Brazil from Group A.
I was a little proactive this week. I posted something on fb from this site and tweeted another. I wonder if anyone read it. The fb post was about NHL hockey and the tweet was about NFL Football. American football. I like sports. And I like World Cup. I did a lot of writing about World Cup, mostly from my iPhone when I’m bored.
And right now I’m not bored. It was my birthday yesterday, May 1st, 2014, and I’ve been on what’s turning into a week long celebration about life. Cinco de Mayo is right around the corner and we must celebrate with our Mexican neighbors to the south. I have a way to share this. No one reads anyway but I look forward to the first legit comment I get on this website. One of two I have in life. I’m a pretty interesting guy.
Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day. It is a celebration of Mexican heritage and culture. It commemorates a victory over the French in 1862 in the Battle of Puebla, who occupied the country in the events following the Mexican American War in the 1840s, which established the current border with Mexico from Texas to the Pacific Ocean. Mostly. The French Army was considered the best in the world and this victory by the Mexicans, led by one of their national heroes, Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín, helped the morale of the Mexican people and helped lead to the eventual retreat of French forces from the country in 1867. The United States helped. We settled our own differences amongst the states in 1865 and turned our attention to French occupied Mexico. By this time, the French had installed a ruler of Mexico and the Americans were not going to let that go down. Not in our neighborhood.
Mexican Independence Day is September 16. It commemorates the start of the Mexican War for Independence against the Spanish. The Spanish came to the New World in the 1500s and made the language of virtually an entire continent, plus a third of another continent, their language. Conquest. The year was 1810 and it took 11 years to rename the country Mexico, after the capital city, founded by the Spanish in 1524. It took almost 3 centuries to change the name from New Spain to Mexico. Spanish is still the language.
So as you celebrate with our Mexican brothers and sisters, remember, you are celebrating Mexican heritage and pride. You’re also celebrating freedom. And, at least in Northwest Ohio, the weather has turned. There are sunny times ahead. And I certainly enjoy writing about history.