Cinco de Mayo & Grimes & Montgomery Counties

                                         
 by Robin Navarro Montgomery

 On the fifth of May, a holiday growing in significance in our local area, was celebrated around our nation. Presented as strictly an Hispanic event, lost to much of the media coverage was the relevance of Cinco de Mayo across our cultural spectrum.

Our story begins in France in the early eighteen sixties. There Napoleon III, nephew of the implacable Napoleon Bonaparte, held power. His army was touted as the finest in the world and he was anxious to exert power over the United States. The US Civil War presented him the opportunity. While sectionalism turned the US inward, Napoleon III sought to establish control over Mexico and use that country as a base to exert influence over US affairs.

In 1862, having conquered Vera Cruz on Mexico’s eastern coast, French forces headed west for Mexico City. On the way, greeting them was an unpleasant surprise.  Texas-born Mexican General Ignacio Zaragoza led a rag-tag army, short on firepower but long on cunning, to an astonishing victory over the French at the
Battle of Puebla.

Ironically, the impact of the victory was greater north of Mexico’s borders than in Mexico, itself.  The
American Southwest had become a part of the United States only a little over a decade earlier, following the US-Mexican War. Hence people of Latin origin were in search of an identity. The victory at Puebla against awesome odds provided a spark generating a sense of pride among Hispanics in general within the United
States.

Cinco de Mayo, then, is more of a holiday for Hispanics in the US than for Mexicans in Mexico. But there
is a basis here for togetherness between Hispanics and other races within the US as well. General Zaragoza’s victory at Puebla bought time for the United States to finish its civil war and send troops to the Mexican border, thus prompting the French to leave Mexico.

Why is it so important, in a practical sense, that Hispanics, Anglos and other races embrace togetherness? 
2010 census data tells the story. In Texas Hispanics increased from 32 to 38 percent of the population while Anglos fell from 52 to 45 percent. In Grimes County Hispanics increased about 50% and in neighboring Montgomery County the increase was 155 percent!

Anglos and Hispanics need each other. The Anglo population is older, needing the younger Hispanic population to help nurture a base for social security. On the other hand, Anglos yet are paramount in terms of generating taxable income, needed to support the education which Hispanics need to advance.

Togetherness is imperative. Celebrating Cinco de Mayois a place to start.