PHOENIX-- American bars and restaurants prepare every year for Cinco de Mayo, offering special offers on Mexican food and alcoholic drinks for the May 5 vacation that is hardly celebrated south of the border.
In the United States, the date is largely viewed as an event of Mexican American culture stretching back to the 1800s in California. Normal festivities include parades, street food, block parties, mariachi competitors and baile folklórico, or folkloric ballet, with whirling dancers using glossy ribbons and braids and bright, ruffled dresses.
For Americans with or without Mexican ancestry, the day has become an excuse to toss back tequila shots with salt and lime and gorge on tortilla chips smothered with melted orange cheddar that's unknown to many people in Mexico.
That's brought some criticism of the vacation, specifically as beer producers and other online marketers have profited from its joyful nature and some revelers embrace offending stereotypes, such as phony, saggy mustaches and massive straw sombreros.
THIS YEAR'S CELEBRATIONS
With May 5 falling at the end of the work week this year, festivities are beginning Friday evening with happy hours and club crawls in cities consisting of Hollywood, featuring $4 beers and two-for-one margaritas, and a boozy party aboard a yacht on
Chicago's Lake Michigan with música norteño, or northern Mexico music, and ballads called corridos.
Events are planned throughout the weekend, specifically in locations with big Mexican American populations, such as
Los Angeles,
Houston,
New York,
San Antonio and
Washington, D.C
. A Sunday festival in downtown
Phoenix will feature performers consisting of Los Lonely Boys, who describe their music as "Texican rock," along with lucha libre, or wrestling matches with masked foes. A Cinco de Mayo parade will occur in
Dallas on Saturday, while a Holy Guacamole Cinco de Mayo Run steps off that early morning in Palisades Park in Santa Monica, California.
WHAT IT IS
Cinco de Mayo marks the anniversary of the 1862 triumph by Mexican troops over attacking French forces at the Battle of Puebla. The victory over the better equipped and more many French troops was a massive psychological increase for the Mexican soldiers led by Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza.
Historic reenactments and parades are held yearly in the central Mexico city of Puebla to celebrate the inspiring triumph over the Europeans, with individuals dressed in historical French and Mexican army uniforms.
WHAT IT ISN'T.
Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day, Mexico's most important vacation.
Mexicans celebrate their country's self-reliance from Spain on the anniversary of the call to arms against the European nation issued Sept. 16, 1810, by the Rev. Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a priest in Dolores, Mexico.
Mexico's president reenacts el Grito de Independencia, or the Cry of Independence, a lot of years on Sept. 15 at about 11 p.m. from the veranda of the nation's National Palace, calling the bell Hidalgo called.
The ceremony usually ends with three sobs of " ¡ Viva México!" above a colorful swirl of 10s of thousands of individuals crowded into the Zócalo, or primary plaza, in central Mexico City.
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