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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2006 
Mexicans Mark "Cinco de Mayo" with Flying Veggies
 Greg Brosnan - Reuters
| | Mexican men portraying Zacapoaxtlas Indians and French soldiers re-enact a battle during a Cinco de Mayo celebration in the Penon de los Banos neighborhood of Mexico City. The Cinco de Mayo celebration of Mexico's short-lived 1862 military victory over the French is now mostly a U.S. affair. It has fizzled out nearly everywhere in Mexico except the working-class Mexico City neighborhood of Penon de los Banos, where a network of families is determined to keep alive a tradition handed down from their great-grandparents. (Henry Romero/Reuters) |
One of the few places in Mexico still celebrating Cinco de Mayo, thanks to an enduring family tradition, did so on Friday with a tequila-fueled fiesta of cannon firing, flying vegetables and forced haircuts.
The celebration of Mexico's short-lived 1862 military victory over the French is now mostly a U.S. affair.
It has fizzled out nearly everywhere in Mexico except the working-class Mexico City neighborhood of Penon de los Banos, where a network of families is determined to keep alive a tradition handed down from their great-grandparents.
It marks the defeat by Mexican troops and local Indians in the central state of Puebla of an invasion by a much better-equipped French force. A subsequent invasion succeeded in occupying Mexico City and briefly installing an emperor.
Firing homemade shotguns loaded with gunpowder, hundreds of men dressed as female Indian peasants with blackened faces, straw hats and embroidered blouses fought mock running battles against French invaders in white bloomers.
Cannon blasts on both sides gave signals for the troops to run at each other, pelting each other with vegetables and French-style baguettes while swigging beer and tequila. Captured foes were held down and given haircuts.
"With machetes, rifles, fruit and vegetables, we spit in the face of the French," growled taco vendor Marco Antonio Torres as his neighbors chanted traditional taunts.
First celebrated in the 1930s, the fiesta was brought to the neighborhood by migrants from the countryside. The booze-fueled play-fighting contrasted starkly with a stiff military parade presided over by President Vicente Fox.
Organizer Facundo Rodriguez, 77, who has been taking part for 70 years, said the French are allowed to win every other year: "So that nobody gets angry," he said as a flying radish hit him on the nose.
Party-goers, many of whom work as security guards and cleaners in Mexico City's nearby airport, said there were no lingering hard feelings toward the modern-day French.
"If there were," joked 53-year-old mock peasant Ruben Sanchez, "we would have closed down the airport." |
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