0:02

You know, those family stories passed down from generation to generation.

They maybe aren’t always all the way true.

But they tell us who we are.

Where we come from.

Well, for David Hayes Bautista, his family myth begins in Mexico.

0:18

The family story.

I’ve heard since I was a kid is that my great-great-grandfather fought at the Battle of Puebla in the spring of 1862 at least 5,000 French soldiers, marched into recently independent.

Sekou headed towards the capitol, their goal depose, the Mexican president and install a puppet Emperor.

0:39

Friendly to France, Mexico.

However, wasn’t going down without a fight as The Story Goes, David’s great-great-grandfather Bartolo Bautista joined Mexico, civilian militia, he marched with other residents of his small town to defend his country.

0:57

At the city of Puebla.

One of the last strongholds before the cap.

Battle.

And on the morning of May 5th. 1862 cannons.

Blasted muskets.

Fired smoke filled the air.

When Bartolo Squad got there a small group of Mexican forces were preparing to repel the French Invaders.

1:20

So there are somewhere in the Battle of Puebla.

He’s with his group from his town and they were surrounded by the French and cut off and taken prisoner as the battle for control of Puebla of raged on French soldiers, took Bartolo and his compatriots and lined them up against a wall to face a firing squad.

1:40

But as David’s family, tells it before the French.

Pull the trigger.

They had an unusual request.

We’re going to shoot you.

We don’t want to have to wash the blood off your shirts.

They wanted the Mexican forces to take off their shirts just in case the French soldiers wanted to wear them as they marched further into Mexico.

1:58

So along with everybody else, my great-great grandfather took off his shirts.

So the firing squad came up, they raised their rifles and then they drop their rifles.

According to the family lore, the French soldiers pulled David’s great-great-grandfather out of line, but decided not to shoot him.

2:20

When they saw.

What was on Bartolo has chest.

My great-great-grandfather was born with a birthmark in the form of a hand, right over his heart.

So detailed that you could see, I remember my Tio of on telling me this with his white shock of hair.

2:36

Save a yet.

Hasta Las phone.

Yesterday, Los dedos.

You can even see the nails on his fingers.

The French soldiers were superstitious and saw the birthmark as assigned to release Bartolo from the firing squad, sparing his life that day as, for the Battle of Puebla.

2:53

Well, Bartolo wasn’t the only one having a good day.

In the end, Mexico won successfully beating back a much more formidable.

Enemy.

This is the story behind Cinco de Mayo.

One of them.

3:08

Anyways.

From gimlet media.

This is not past it a show about the stories.

We can’t quite leave behind every episode.

We take a moment from that very same week in history and tell you the story of how it shaped our world.

3:26

I’m Simone plannin on May 5th 1862 160 years ago.

This week, the Battle of Puebla inspired over A Century of celebrating Cinco de Mayo.

Maybe you know it as the De Beer Company.

3:43

He’s and chain restaurants, urge Americans to Cinco to drink.

Oh, but how did a nineteenth-century battle become a beer, marketers dream in the first place.

Plus we’ll dive into the rich history of El Cinco because it’s much bigger than the story of a single battle.

4:01

That’s after the break.

When David Hayes Bautista started school at UC Berkeley in the 1960s, he found he was one of only a few students like him around.

4:20

There were 25 Chicanos on campus period.

So we were the first generation in any significant numbers to suddenly find ourselves on these University campuses.

David who we heard at the top of the show, immediately went to work promoting representation and inclusion on campus, and that work gathered steam over time.

4:42

We’d have these events.

So let’s bring high school student.

Life can actually step on a campus and see that no one’s going to eat them up together with other Chicanos and Chicanos, Americans of Mexican descent.

They came up with a splashy way.

They could celebrate their Mexican heritage and recruit students to campus by celebrating.

5:01

Holiday.

Many Latinos of his generation had grown up with El Cinco de Mayo for years Cinco de Mayo.

The day that commemorated the Battle of Puebla was celebrated in the southwestern United States by Mexican Americans.

5:17

There was a lot of dancing music and even battle re-enactments.

David and his friends.

Revived these Cinco celebrations and inspired by leaders like Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.

They focused there’s around rejecting white supremacy.

5:33

Embracing Latino cultural heritage and fighting for a more just Society values that the Battle of Puebla embodied.

It was more of a symbolic David versus Goliath.

The even though you’re smaller, even though you’re outnumbered, you’re speaking to power.

5:49

If your cause is just if your heart is pure, you too, can Prevail against overwhelming odds, so is almost a metaphor of her what we were trying to do and so we wanted to have a UC Berkeley celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

So how do we celebrate Cinco, de Mayo and 19, 70 or 71 with a salt set concert at the Greek Theater.

6:10

Just like the celebrations that their parents and grandparents had for El Cinco, the concert had great music and dancing but the concert itself was just one of many events.

David said, he and his compete riots made a whole recruiting week out of it.

6:26

Showcasing art and culture, that really felt representative of Chicanos.

We do the whole Semana De La Raza, but we put in Emiliano Zapata, or you’d put in a lowrider, a Pachuco.

In the Zoot Suit, these Cinco celebrations became an You will event each year activists at Berkeley would recruit students with music art and a message.

6:48

But Berkeley students.

Weren’t the only ones Reviving Cinco by the end of the 1970s.

El Cinco became a rallying point everywhere, Chicanos went and lived tens of thousands of people would show up to parks and campuses and cities, like Los Angeles and San Francisco every fifth of May.

7:07

But over the next few decades while Cinco celebrations were On the upswing and Latino communities across the country.

Some other folks were eyeing, this holiday helping to unlock its commercial potential who actually thought about connecting the brand to Cinco de Mayo.

7:26

I did.

Yeah, that was me.

That’s Ron christeson.

He used to work in brand management for two major beer brands in the 1980s.

One of them was cores.

The other, we’re gonna get enough that if it’s a lot of Corona beer with, it’s clear, long, neck bottle, and signature lime by the mid-1980s, the Mexican brand quickly became one of the top selling imported.

7:55

Years in the u.s.

It was an extremely hot brand.

This thing’s just kicking, everybody’s can all over the place kicking.

Everybody’s can wow upon after my own heart in 1988.

8:10

Ron started working for one of Coronas u.s.

Distributors for the East Coast.

The brand already had a steady following in the southwest, but that wasn’t the case in other parts of the country where Ron says, Corona was seen as more of Of a fleeting fad.

8:26

The sales were following rapidly in the places where he had been explosive before.

So, very much of a fad type of orientation.

Corona star was falling as fast as it had risen.

The CEO of the East Coast distributor said, one main reason was that competitors?

8:44

Like the beer King Anheuser-Busch were copying Coronas signature, Longneck bottles.

Now that more familiar domestic beers had Coronas sexy look, The Mexican import had lost some of its Edge.

There was also a pesky rumor going around that the corona Brewery and Mexico had raw sewage leaking into the plant.

9:06

AKA there might be p in the beer and some stores demand reportedly dropped by 80% Ron and his team had a lot of work ahead of them.

They started to design a whole creative strategy for the brand sitting on the beach having a Chrono would change your whole and we’re thinking about things basically, young and indifferent, having some fun, a classic that still exists today.

9:33

And what could they use to really sell this coronavirus?

I’m well a Mexican beer needed, a Mexican holiday and El Cinco just happened to be the perfect day on the marketing calendar.

Being a Cinco de Mayo May 5th.

It was after Easter.

9:51

Nothing was really happening this before Memorial Day.

So it really was kind of a sweet spot for To be able to go in and generate retail activity.

When he was at korres before Corona, Ron had heard about Cinco.

While working in the Brand’s, Hispanic marketing department.

10:07

These departments were something a lot of companies were building out.

Especially after Publications, like Time Magazine claimed the 1980s would be the decade of the Hispanic.

They predicted the growing demographic would play an increasingly influential role in American politics and policies.

10:26

Like many big beer brands Corona already had Cinco campaigns for the Latino community in the southwest.

But when he pitched, the idea to his boss, Ron wanted to make Cinco de Mayo.

A fiesta for everyone they say well, how would we do that?

Nobody would know what it is.

10:42

Nice is that’s exactly the point.

And that’s where we begin, you know.

So how many people know what the origin of St.

Patrick’s Day is what it means is you get green beer, your dressing grain, you have, you know, different Irish.

Type things, but it’s a retail opportunity.

11:00

His boss liked the idea.

So in 1989 the first Corona campaign around Cinco de Mayo was rolled out.

The first advertisement was the celebrates think robots equal to what is equal to.

Well.

Mexican holiday Cinco.

Do what Cinco de Mayo the 5th of May the Mexican holiday.

11:18

It’s a great time to party with the.

How do you do that?

Basically my kernel popped the top, put it in a lime.

Enjoy, repeat step, you know.

Quattro.

Enjoy like that step and Cinco repeat step Uno.

11:36

Needless to say, after a couple of years of these annual promotions, the new holiday was a hit and not just for Corona, but for all beer brands today, Cinco de Mayo is one of the biggest beer, buying holidays, in the US, by some estimates, it topples st.

11:54

Patrick’s Day, and the Super Bowl for brew purchased and let’s be real.

Advertisers treat Cinco basically, like it’s st.

Patrick’s Day with a Mexican flag.

And if you arrive on the most special Day in Ireland, you’ll find the town celebrating their favorite holiday in traditional fashion.

12:22

After the success of the corona campaign other retailers jumped in on Cinco de Mayo, to, from tequila to restaurants and salsa brands in the store.

The opportunities were endless.

I serve at the Battle of Cinco de Mayo Dos.

12:42

Equis.

Keep it.

Interasante.

First.

Cinco de mayo party.

Ever, not exactly a masterpiece DaVinci.

What are you doing?

Adding the avocados from Mexico?

They’re always good.

This Cinco de Mayo Bank on half-price drinks.

12:58

All day Tuesday, May 5th.

This is how you Sonic, 7-Eleven advertisers free, many tacos.

Every Slurpee TGI Fridays offers five dollar Rita’s to go avocados from Mexico.

Get a bump in sales.

13:15

Not that it’s without criticism.

I asked Ron about the holidays more problematic nature.

A common criticism is that this is a holiday that was appropriated for commercial needs.

Is that criticism that you are aware of?

13:31

Well, I guess I would be true.

I’ve never heard of his been, a criticism, any more than you would Fourth of July.

You know, it’s a marketing aspect of it that you took advantage of.

Okay.

Sure.

So many holidays are commercialized helped.

13:48

Some of them were basically co-opted for the exact same purpose.

That Ron is talking about like Valentine’s Day and Halloween, but those holidays aren’t wrapped up in culture and politics and identity in the same way Cinco de Mayo is for people who had a connection with the holiday from childhood, and remembered what it meant during the Chicano movement.

14:09

This dress didn’t sit, right.

David Hayes Bautista, the man who promoted the holiday at UC Berkeley, with the salsa concert and has a personal connection to El Cinco is one of those people.

A lot of commercial interest realized.

Oh, we can sell a lot of stuff, and a lot of chain restaurants, started promoting this drink called amio, because we could sell a lot of alcoholic beverages.

14:30

Done a lot of folks particular that you kind of generation, just, you know, stop celebrating our why just to go get drunk.

We’re what’s chica know about that.

So, like many Chicano activists of his generation, David stepped away from Cinco de Mayo for years, but he would later make a discovery about its history.

14:52

That would totally change his understanding of the holiday in its Origins Cinco de Mayo is a public statement for Latino stood on the issues of the Civil War.

After the break.

We’ll dive into the original meaning of Cinco de Mayo.

Welcome back before the break.

15:17

We left.

Dr. David Hayes Bautista.

Just as he decided to walk away from Cinco.

De Mayo after beer marketers latched onto the holiday.

When he went to go work at UCLA School of Medicine in the early 90s.

He saw other Cinco de Mayo celebrations, on campus.

15:35

It was a place that like Berkeley.

He once saw as a Groundswell of political action, but what he witnessed there was, especially disheartening.

This became a big party time.

So you have these non-hispanic whites were in great big straw, sombreros and drive also getting drunk and saying, happy Cinco, de Mayo.

15:55

And that’s pretty much where David left Cinco for years, but he thought about it often and one day while in Guadalajara.

He got the Cinco Edge, again.

The city is one of the biggest in Mexico.

So he figured they must have the most spectacular Cinco de Mayo festivities celebrating the nation’s victory.

16:15

A over the French at the Battle of Puebla.

So on May 5th, David hurried to a Downtown Plaza where a centuries-old Cathedrals sits in the shade of the Neo Gothic spires.

He set up camp, imagining parades music dancers, Grant speeches, but hours went by and no celebration ever happened.

16:39

Just the usual Buzz of a major metro area.

That’s when he learned.

It was not celebrated in Mexico, much to my chagrin as it turns out Cinco is a relatively minor holiday in Mexico.

16:55

Mostly celebrated in the city of Puebla David.

Thought that’s weird.

If this day wasn’t really celebrated in Mexico, then why did he know about the holiday growing up?

Was it not brought up from Mexico when immigrants moved across the border like many assumed.

17:13

The Cinco mystery remained, unsolved until 2007.

When David started out on a personal research project.

It wasn’t about Cinco.

At first.

He was actually looking at the different waves of immigration from Mexico to Los Angeles in the mid-nineteenth century.

17:33

David poured through Spanish language newspapers from the 1850s and 60s for demographic data birth and marriage announcements obituaries.

And as he read, he also started learning about what Latinos and California were concerned with.

During the years leading up to the American Civil War.

17:51

Latinos were very quick to understand what the issues were.

So Latinos backed up the Union against the slave states, the Confederate States who are fighting to maintain slavery and white.

Missy Mexico had its own history with slavery.

They had abolished it as a result of the Mexican war of independence.

18:09

Just a couple decades earlier many people in California.

Had previously lived under the Mexican regime, just a few years before.

And not only were they seeing support for slavery, winning to the east, but along their southern Border in Mexico French.

18:25

Tyranny was on the move.

So in the early years, when it looked like the Confederacy might win, that fear was felt.

All across the union but especially by Latinos in the southwest just as the Civil War was going from bad to worse.

18:40

For Abraham Lincoln, and the army of freedom and equality.

The French start marching towards Mexico City.

In the spring of 1862.

David’s research shows that many Latinos saw the war between Mexico and France as an extension of the American Civil War, especially, since France was considering supporting the Confederacy around the same time, whatever happened.

19:02

In Mexico could have a ripple effect on the fight between the union and Confederacy.

It could mean that oppression would Prevail so it’s suddenly look like slavery.

Monarchy white supremacy was going to take over the Western Hemisphere.

19:19

Shit could get real in the west quick.

But then the Battle of Puebla gave Latinos in California.

A shot of Hope.

The French were unexpectedly.

Stopped dead at the Battle of platelet.

19:34

There were decisively defeated.

They actually left the battlefield, the news arrived here, three weeks later, just as Latinos are hearing about the disaster of the Union Army and the contrast could not have been more striking.

There were immediate that night spontaneous celebrations, up, and down.

19:52

The state guns were fired into the night sky.

Men, and women gave electric speeches about the defeat headlines.

Printed in Spanish, hurrah for Mexico, hurrah for Independence.

It just energized, Latinos, in terms of the issues of Freedom versus slavery of equality versus white supremacy.

20:14

It was like the beginning of a new day for Latinos as citizens of the United States.

This momentum continued.

Well after the good news, arrived, community-based groups called junta’s patriota.

Cosmic on has organized to support the Mexican Army.

20:30

Me, they held meetings and collected dues to help fund ongoing battles in the American Civil War and Mexico’s war with France, and in California, and across the Southwest Cinco.

De Mayo was used as a rallying point to collect more donations and stir up enthusiasm.

20:47

It would become an annual celebration.

A touch point of where Mexico and the u.s.

Is history intertwined.

Creating a new Latino tradition in the u.s.

People now in a much more.

Organized fashion would March through the streets of towns behind both the flags of the United States and Mexico singing, both the Star-Spangled Banner and the Mexican national anthem.

21:09

They would have bands.

There would be speeches.

There would be fireworks.

There would be dances.

There’d be food.

It was a public statement for Latino students.

The issues of the Civil War.

El Cinco was a holiday whose Roots were American, Mexican American Californian, whose Traditions were specific to its Community, but whose message, Was Universal.

21:31

We oppose slavery, we support Freedom.

We oppose white supremacy.

We support Racial equality.

We oppose elitist Plantation rule.

We support government of the People by the people and for the people, that is what it meant by the end of the 1860s.

21:49

The Confederacy had lost in the US and the French withdrew from Mexico slavery and tyranny would not expand again in the Western Hemisphere and lots of Nose in California, continued celebrating El Cinco year after year, decade after decade, but eventually many decades later the holidays connection to the Civil War to the fight against slavery, faded the details lost to the murky memories and the many retellings passed down from generation to generation.

22:24

Eventually.

The meaning of Cinco was simplified down to a holiday celebrating, the Mexican victory.

Over the French in the Battle of Puebla, the version of Cinco, that David.

And his family knew about quite frankly.

Now that I know the true history.

I’m thinking well, I’d be like, you know, saying Fourth of July is just about beer and baseball.

22:44

Let’s get drunk bars.

Nothing about a declaration of independence, right?

So man, anything else just?

Yeah.

Well, that wouldn’t be right, and I’m feeling that way about Cinco de Mayo.

So David thought about what it would mean to reclaim the holiday from the corrupted version.

The beer companies were Ling.

23:01

The only beer to serve at the Battle of Cinco de Mayo, Cinco de Mayo, Cinco, do what Cinco de Mayo.

The fifth of May the Mexican holiday.

In 2012, David published his Discovery in the book, El Cinco de Mayo an American tradition.

23:22

And since then he’s fully back in the Cinco game has been appropriated.

But because it is so well known.

I’d like to take it back and terms of it’s about civil rights and these issues are hot burning topics today.

23:40

How do you take a holiday back?

Well, starting with how about a little bit of History?

I share this history, a lot.

And quite often.

I get to reactions, often the same route to reactions from the same person.

First of all, suddenly.

23:56

They feel proud that Latinos were actually here.

They were engaged in the Civil War there on the side of freedom and equality.

They feel proud to be American and then in the next breath, but, I’m angry.

Why is it?

I’m 55, and I’m just learning this.

24:12

Now.

Should learn this in second grade.

This becomes a very deep topic very quickly.

It’s no longer.

Just how many tacos can you eat in five minutes?

I personally am very grateful for David’s efforts to reclaim Cinco de Mayo and share the days Real History because I’ve definitely dismissed it as just another commercial holiday.

24:32

Not a know, something about the onslaught of cheesy ads.

And openly engaging in stereotypes, just wasn’t doing it for me.

And if I had left it there as basically, a beer holiday, I would have never known of its roots in abolition and dismantling racism.

24:52

In fighting for freedom, and I would have lost a rich and honestly still very relevant piece of History.

We all would have Not passed it as a Spotify original produced by gimlet and zsp media.

25:29

This episode was produced by Julie Carly next week.

We bring you part 2 of the hunt for Nazi, Adolf Eichmann.

And then when they got him out of the car, short distance, just to the steps to go and go into the plane.

They serve lift it up enough so they could get Up the stairs and they say, oh, you know, he had too much of a good time in Buenos Aires, you know, it’s a fun town after all.

25:55

The rest of our team is producer.

Sarah Craig, our associate producer is Ramona Philip.

Laura Newcomb is our production assistant.

The supervising producer is Erica Morrison editing by k.t.

Feather.

Andrea be Scott and Zach Stewart Ponte a fact-checking by Jane Ackerman sound design.

26:11

And mixing my Hans Diehl.

She original music by sacks.

Kick savagely, Green, Jay blast and Bobby.

Lord.

Our theme song is Toko Liana by Coco, Co with music supervision by Liz Fulton, technical Direction by Zach Schmidt show art by Elysee.

Arvin and Talia Rahman, the executive producer at CSP media is Zach Stewart Ponte the executive producer from gimlet is Matt schulze, special.

26:33

Thanks to Philip van munching, Jose.

Aluminio, Carlos Alvarez, Emma Courtland, Giselle Hernandez, Sierra, Santiago, Greenwood, Adriana, Valdez, the Consulate, General of Mexico and Allah, Sergio Marshall, Tiffany, ketchel and to Lydia Pole Green Dan Behar Jen hon.

26:51

Emily wiedemann list Styles and Joshua Bianchi.

Follow not past it.

Now to listen for free exclusively on Spotify.

Click the little bell next to the follow button to get notifications for new episodes.

You can follow me on Twitter at Simone palana and thanks for hanging.

27:08

We’ll see you next week and we keep saying but we never died, you know, that you caught a movement for us.

Never ended is still going on.