Cinco de Mayo
The French army came to Mexico when President Benito Juarez suspended their debt payment to France. The French refused his offer of promissory notes to be repaid in two years and then attacked Mexico City. Puebla, (a city southeast of Mexico City), lay directly in the French army’s path, and on May 5, 1862, the outnumbered and ill-equipped army of Mestizo and Zapotic Indians defeated Emperor Napoleon III’s French troops in the “Batalla de Puebla.” Although the victory in Puebla was short lived it has become symbolic of the country’s unity and will to a self government. Many wrongly equate it with Mexican Independence which was on September 16, 1810, nearly fifty years earlier. Cinco de Mayo is celebrated throughout Mexico, especially in the state of Puebla and in Mexico City, with parades and festivities in the “zócalo” or town square. Cinco de Mayo has become even more popular in the U.S. than in Mexico, where it is widely celebrated with parades, mariachi music, “folklorico” dances and parties. It is primarily a commercial holiday in the U.S.