Viva Zaragoza!

I want to talk about the Mexican American War. In case you forgot, that was that little border dispute we had with our neighbors to the south back around 1846 or so, a conflict precipitated by Mexico's stubborn refusal to accept what we had always felt was our manifest destiny to populate and own the North American continent. Remember? We tried to buy the land from them at first but they refused, so then we just said the hell with it and declared war, sent a couple of armies down south and more or less forced the issue.

One of the armies, led by General Zachary Taylor ("Old Rough and Ready"), went down first and bloodied some noses around the Mexican city of Monterrey, but even though their army was defeated the Mexican government still refused to yield. A little put out by this we sent another army under the command of Winfield Scott (old "Fuss and Feathers") to launch an amphibious assault at Vera Cruz and march across Mexico and occupy the capital Mexico City. They probably went over all of this with you back in high school, but you might have forgot to take notes.

Anyways, after we occupied Mexico City we went to the Mexican Congress and putting a knife to their throats we asked them if they would like to consider a treaty. "Do we have a choice?" they asked, to which we replied "Of course" and made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

"Tell you what" we said, "if you give us California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, we'd be more than willing to let you keep Ensenada and Tiajuana". Naturally, the Mexicans thought this was very generous offer, especially coming from someone with a knife to their throat, but they still weren't to sure they wanted to make the deal. This was very exasperating to the U.S. and we certainly didn't want to seem like we were trying to bully anyone, so we said "Listen. You know we're going to take what we want whether you sign the treaty or not, but, tell you what, just to show what nice guys we are and how reasonable we can be, how about we chip in a little extra cash to sort of smooth over the rough edges." "How much?" the Mexicans asked, and so we slipped a cool $15 million in their pockets and in 1848 the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo was signed.

And that was the Mexican American War - well, the condensed version. After we had our treaty we quickly got our maps out and started drawing lines throughout the Southwest. "Look" we'd tell the Mexican people, "this here line is a border. I know this line never used to be here before, but we're making a rule that everything south of that line is Mexico and everything north of that line is us. So you gotta stay on your side of the line, Ok?"

"But senor" the Mexicans would say, "there won't be any place for my cattle to graze." "But senor, my brother and my sister live over there. How will I visit them?" "But senor, I have lived there all my life. Does this mean I will never get to see my home again?"

"No, you don't understand. This land up north is the United States. See? We drew a line. Once you draw a line and make a rule then it isn't Mexico anymore. Now I want you all to stay down there where you're supposed to and don't be causing us any trouble. You hear?", and with that settled we quickly went about the business of building organic food stores and tanning salons.

Of course, the Mexicans didn't pay any attention to us or our lines and have continued crossing back and forth ever since. That's also why today I'm living in a city called San Jose, in a county called Santa Clara, south of the city of San Francisco, north of Monterey, east of Santa Cruz, and west of the San Joaquin valley, in the state of California, whose capital is Sacramento and whose largest cities are Los Angeles and San Diego, sitting in a taqueria and listening to some white guy named Todd complain about all the "non-natives" and "illegal aliens" that are slipping across our borders.

Kind of peculiar when you stop to think about it.

Well it's still all over the news of course. The governor is talking about closing our borders and meanwhile we've got these white guys in pickup trucks cruising up and down the border with high powered rifles searching the sand and scrub brush for Mexicans. (Well, to be fair, they're just there to "observe". "Observe", that is, through the scopes of their Remington rifles). They call themselves Minutemen and although I've never seen a poll I suspect that most Americans would see them as patriots out to protect us from those brown people coming over our borders to take away all of those good lettuce picking jobs.

Kind of peculiar and I get the feeling that if these were French Canadians coming over the northern border to take those lettuce picking jobs then the outcry wouldn't be quite so loud, but it's probably not really a racial thing. In fact if you took a poll of the Latino community here in California I bet you'd find there are quite a few legal immigrants and children of immigrants who would harbor many of the same "send 'em back to Mexico" feelings. Well that's what I suspect from what I hear, anyways, and my guess is that the border dispute probably has less to do with ethnicity than it has to do with poverty and not wanting to have a bunch of poor people hanging around.

Either way none of that has anything to do with Cinco de Mayo, which is really what I intended to talk about tonight. If you live in Iowa or North Dakota then Cinco de Mayo is probably nothing more than the 5th of May to you, but out here in California and the West it's a big deal. We've got the parades and the dancing and the music and the food and all that, and of course like a lot of holidays nobody is exactly sure what everyone is celebrating about but it doesn't seem to matter as long as the food is hot and the beer is cold.

But not me.

"What is Cinco de Mayo?", I ask myself, and here's the answer. It's the anniversary of an 1862 battle in which a Mexican militia under the command of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin defeated the French Army of Napoleon III at the town of Puebla, just east of Mexico City. As you may recall (here we go again with the high school history lesson) the French Army had invaded Mexico back around the time of the American Civil War with the intention of occupying the country and installing the Archduke Maximillan, a Hapsburg and friend of Napoleon III as leader. However, at Puebla the outnumbered Mexican militia was able to stop the French invading force cold and force them to retreat and regroup, effectively ending the campaign for the remainder of that year and beyond.

Now what any of that has to do with burritos and a six pack of Corona's is beyond me, but every 5th of May the Mexican American community gets together and throws a big party to commemorate the victory. Of course what they fail to mention, or at least choose to forget, is that the year after the victory at Puebla the French returned with 30,000 troops and crushed the Mexican resistance and Maximillan did indeed become ruler of Mexico for a time...that is until they assasinated him.

But you know what? Who cares, that was all a long time to go and isn't it ironic that 150 years later we Californians, residing in what once was the northern part of Mexico, should once again find ourselves with a Hapsburg on the throne.

Ok, maybe Arnold isn't a Hapsburg, but he is Austrian. Kind of peculiar isn't it?