Cinco Dr Mayo is a harmless excuse to drink cervezas and margaritas and eat delicious Mexican food. Gustavo Arellano, my go to guy for dealing with my Mexican in-laws, has this to say: "I basically think Cinco de Mayo is one of the most pointless holidays ever created. I don’t celebrate it per se, I don’t look forward to it or wear a sombrero or go to a Mexican restaurant to go celebrate it. If people want to celebrate it, that’s fine, but I just think they are fools. When I say 'fools' I’m referring to Mexicans celebrating it because there is nothing to celebrate."
http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/05/ask-a-mexican-columnist-cinco-de-mayo-is-pointless/
So have fun on the 5th and remember to make a distinction between American citizens of Mexican ancestry, some whose families have been here since way back when, and illegally immigrated citizens of Mexico.

It's such a bummer that they have nothing to celebrate.

And Safeway manages - again - to present a Mexican wearing a huuuge sombrero playing a guitar as the emblem of Cinco de Mayo.

Racism, ethnicism, sterotyping, Privilegio de los norteamericanos and all other -isms, too. Thanks, Safeway!

Well, the Mexicans that I know LIKE mariachis. I don't think that would bother them at all. Not that I know all about Mexicans (some of my best friends are Mexican, heh)-just what I've observed.

Cinco de Mayo, from what I remember from my misspent yoot, was just a reason to drink some beer. No matter that there was a defeat of the French, no matter what "academics" tried to link to the beer-drinking practices. It was just another reason to drink beer (or margaritas once someone figured out how to make them).

Kind of like celebrating the grand opening of a pack of cigarettes.