Cinco de Mayo celebrates Mexican culture, not independence
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American bars and restaurants gear up every year for Cinco de Mayo, offering special deals on Mexican food and alcoholic drinks for the May 5 holiday that is barely celebrated south of the border.
American bars and restaurants gear up every year for Cinco de Mayo, offering special deals on Mexican food and alcoholic drinks for the May 5 holiday that is barely celebrated south of the border.
In the United States, the date is largely seen as a celebration of Mexican American culture stretching back to the 1800s in California. Typical festivities include parades, street food, block parties, mariachi competitions and baile folklorico, or folkloric ballet, with whirling dancers wearing shiny 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 unfamiliar to most people in Mexico.
That's brought some criticism of the holiday, especially as beer manufacturers and other marketers have capitalized on its festive nature and some revellers embrace offensive stereotypes, such as fake, droopy mustaches and gigantic straw sombreros.
With May 5 falling at the end of the work week this year, festivities are kicking off Friday evening with happy hours and pub crawls in cities including Hollywood, featuring $4 beers and two-for-one margaritas, and a boozy party aboard a yacht on Chicago's Lake Michigan with musica norteno, or northern Mexico music, and ballads called corridos.
Celebrations are planned throughout the weekend, especially in places with large 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 including Los Lonely Boys, who describe their music as "Texican rock," as well as lucha libre, or wrestling matches with masked adversaries. A Cinco de Mayo parade will take place in Dallas on Saturday, while a Holy Guacamole Cinco de Mayo Run steps off that morning in Palisades Park in Santa Monica, California.