Now that Cinco de Mayo is here, we would be wise to remember that Mexico has endured many hardships: revolutions, invasions, defeat in wars, insurrections, banditry, dictatorships, betrayals, corrupt governments, catastrophic plagues, and a permanent state of inequality and oppression which is the legacy of a Spanish caste system rooted in the medieval culture of Counter Reformation Spain. I know that we suffer from historical amnesia but we must understand this because inequality and oppression explain the grinding poverty, crime and the anarchy of the drug cartels which torment millions in Mexico and other Latin countries even now.

What should our response be to this human tragedy? The answer, if we can get serious about it, is the real reason why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo — the beer and liquor companies and their sales campaigns notwithstanding.

We can go back to the first European invasion, that of Hernan Cortez and the Spaniards who destroyed the Aztec empire in 1519-1521 with guns, germs and steel. The native people had little defense against smallpox, European firearms, steel swords and armor, and were decimated. The Spanish Conquest destroyed a sophisticated civilization and doomed millions to a life of serfdom. For 300 years the Spaniards suppressed Indian revolts and imposed a racist caste system on the country. Then came the Revolution of 1810, inspired by the American Revolution. This war for independence, led by Mexican Catholic clergy, began on September 16, 1810, a date celebrated as Mexican Independence Day.

The war was a bloody upheaval, more like a slave uprising, marked by massacres and the defeat, capture and execution of Padre Miguel Hidalgo, the George Washington of Mexico by the Spanish Royalist army. The Spaniards won, but in 1821 were driven out by a leader of the wealthy elites named Agustin de Iturbide who was delusional and made himself emperor. His jealous colleagues would not allow this and he was quickly overthrown and shot. This began a period of chaos during which a general with even worse delusions of grandeur, Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, became dictator. Santa Ana quickly lost Texas in 1836 to Sam Houston. This was followed by the Mexican Cession, fully one-half of Mexico’s territory lost at gunpoint to President James Polk and the United States during the Mexican War of 1846-1848 (called the Yankee Invasion in Mexico).

But the struggle of the lower classes continued. Benito Juarez, that rarity in Mexico, a dark-skinned Indian who became president, led the War of the Reform in the 1850s, a struggle of the poor against the landed aristocrats who controlled huge haciendas. This war was about land reform, the break-up of the estates of wealthy oligarchs. Many of the rich fled to Paris, a favored destination of dispossessed elites from Latin America, something which is true even now.

In Paris, the gullible French emperor, Napoleon III, was deluded by the blandishments of the light-skinned creoles who fancied themselves to be of pure Spanish blood. The traitorous creoles convinced the new Napoleon that the Mexican masses were groaning under the oppression of Juarez and the Liberals. But it was all a lie. Their motive was to recover lost lands.

The time was ripe for the restoration of the old regime, or so the exiles said. The Mexicans would welcome a French army with flower and song.

Accordingly, Napoleon III sent troops in 1862 to Mexico, led by the even more gullible Archduke Maximilian. This set the stage for the May 5, 1862 battle of Puebla, a city located on the road from the coastal city of Veracruz to Mexico City, the route of invading armies from the Spaniards to the Americans to the French.

But then another rarity — a mestizo and Indian Mexican army defeated an invading White army — the anniversary of which is called El Cinco de Mayo.

On Cinco de Mayo we celebrate the victory of patriotic Mexicans over arrogant invaders. And realize that the battle against racism, poverty, inequality, corruption and crime continues. Let’s have a party, but let’s stay sober enough to remember the true reason for the celebration.

Joe Barrera, Ph.D., is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS. He teaches Mexico-U.S. Border Studies and U.S. Military History. He is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

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