Comments on: It’s Cinco de Mayo–Vive La France!

By: bayesian

bayesian — Wed, 07 May 2008 06:04:55 +0000

@daninardmore:

In San Miguel de Allende, GTO, which has quite a large expat community, they do, or at least they did in the 70s when I lived there. If my memory serves correctly the festivities actually got some small amount of money from the city govt. I remember well the 1973 celebration when one of the pyrotechnics went awry and wound up burning down the biggest tree in the plaza, said tree allegedly dating back to the colonial period. A finer metaphor for something you could not ask.

By: tedschan

tedschan — Tue, 06 May 2008 03:30:20 +0000

Ok, thank you! I’ll have to find myself a copy.

By: Daniel Larison

Daniel Larison — Tue, 06 May 2008 02:59:45 +0000

Offhand, I recommend The Good Americans for a history of the Loyalists, which touches on some of this. There are others that I have somewhere in my collection, but that is as good a place as any to start.

By: tedschan

tedschan — Tue, 06 May 2008 02:48:19 +0000

As a matter of constitutional law, the Loyalists were pretty much in the right,

Mr. Larison, what books would you recommend that go into this at length?

By: Daniel Larison

Daniel Larison — Tue, 06 May 2008 02:07:26 +0000

Well, quite. As a matter of constitutional law, the Loyalists were pretty much in the right, and there is something a bit dodgy about allying with the old enemy to strike at the Mother Country. However, until I encounter a Francophobe who is also a supporter of the Loyalists, I think the point stands.

By: TGGP

TGGP — Tue, 06 May 2008 01:50:49 +0000

The even more extreme reactionary would question whether we should celebrate Yorktown.

By: Daniel Larison

Daniel Larison — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:42:06 +0000

That’s the funny thing about Cinco de Mayo. Mexican independence day is a much more important celebration in Mexico, while most people up here have no idea when it is (why would we?). Celebrating Cinco de Mayo here would be like Mexicans celebrating the anniversary of Lexington and Concord. It makes no sense at all. Not that celebrating Mexican independence day would necessarily make any more sense, but at least that would have some parallel with what the Greeks do on March 25.

By: daninardmore

daninardmore — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:37:49 +0000

I just want to know if they celebrate the Fourth of July in Mexico.