Gadget Man's Ramblings!

At least that is what my boss said when I walked into my office this morning, "Happy Cinco de Mayo to you too!" I responded back to her. I sat at in my office and started working.

My co-workers yelled the same thing when they came in to work this morning; some even brought chips and guacamole dip.

While I started to work I wondered why we celebrated "Cinco de Mayo", I knew it was not the Mexican Independence, since this was on September 15, 1810, so I got on Goggle and searched for the true meaning of "Cinco de Mayo" and found several similar answers.

One web site (Viva! Cinco de Mayo), it tells that 4000 Mexican Soldiers won a battle in Puebla, Mexico, against 8000 enemy soldiers that consisted of French and traitor Mexican soldiers on May 5th, 1862.

On another site (Cinco de Mayo) from UCLA, it explains that there was 5000 ill-equipped Mestizo and Zapotec Indians defeated the French army in the "Batalla de Puebla" (The Battle of Puebla), and that over the years it has been commercialized by the Chicano communities, and fuled by American coorporations in the US.

Wikipedia ad's support to both of these web sites into what happened but does not go into much detail of what happened, but more into what it has become.

On the official "Cinco de Mayo" web site I was greeted by great Mexican music and a very pretty flash presentation, but the story was the same as the first site (Viva! Cinco de Mayo) that I visited. This site did not give you the history of the bat; you first had to go through the obvious party area that all Americans know very well before you actually see the history.

I finally came across to a site called MEXonline.com, that stated that they where the oldest online Mexican resource. I liked this site the most since it had more detailed information on what really happened back in Puebla and less on what venues to go to celebrate. It tells the story of 4500 poorly armed militia defeated the French army with its 6500 well equipped soldiers.

Unfortunately the French defeated the Mexican army a year later with 30,000 more troops and took over the newly formed Mexican Government.

Mexico finally found help from the United States after it finished its own civil war and both countries where able to push the French outside Mexican soil.

Today "Cinco the Mayo" is not celebrated as a National Holiday in Mexico, but is celebrated heavily in Puebla very heavily; all though I think we celebrate this day more that Puebla it self.

I think that if tt least we are going to celebrate a Holiday from another country, let's know at least what we are celebrating for.