El Cinco de Mayo

Why is Cinco de Mayo - a holiday commemorating a Mexican victory over the French at Puebla in 1862 - so widely celebrated in California and across the United States, when it is scarcely observed in Mexico? This title shows how the meaning of Cinco de Mayo has shifted over time. “David Hayes-Bautista’s fascinating study finds new sources that illuminate the California roots of Cinco de Mayo celebrations. But more than just uncovering the holiday’s true origins, El Cinco de Mayo offers a striking interpretation of the making of a Mexican-American culture in Civil War-Era North America.”—Stephen Aron, author of American Confluence: The Missouri Frontier from Borderland to Border State. “In this well-written and thoroughly-researched study, Hayes-Bautista reminds us that Cinco de Mayo is not really a Mexican holiday, but rather a celebration created in California during the American Civil War by native-born Latinos and immigrants from Mexico and Latin America. Hayes-Bautista has reconstructed the rich social and political world of these California Latinos in painstaking detail, and his analysis of their widespread political engagement reveals an activism hitherto not fully recognized. This is an original and revealing book that changes the way we think about nineteenth century California.”—Richard Griswold del Castillo, author of The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A Legacy of Conflict. Why is Cinco de Mayo - a holiday commemorating a Mexican victory over the French at Puebla in 1862 - so widely celebrated in California and across the United States, when it is scarcely observed in Mexico? As David E. Hayes-Bautista explains, the holiday is not Mexican at all, but rather an American one, created by Latinos in California during the mid-nineteenth century. Hayes-Bautista shows how the meaning of Cinco de Mayo has shifted over time - it embodied immigrant nostalgia in the 1930s, U.S. patriotism during World War II, Chicano Power in the 1960s and 1970s, and commercial intentions in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, it continues to reflect the aspirations of a community that is engaged, empowered, and expanding.