by Ruth Scalpone

Created on: March 02, 2010

Cinco de Mayo is celebrated in the United States on May 5 of every year by many cities and towns, especially in Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and California. They are Border States with Mexico.  Cinco de Mayo is a major holiday in those places, which have parades, festivals, luncheons and dinners.  The happy and colorful festivals have Mexican food and dancing.  Booths of items for sale have everything from home-made tortillas to wide-brimmed hats.  Mariachi bands give concerts, where they perform songs popular in Mexico. 

For decoration and for sale, strings of red and green chili’s hang from ceilings and posts around the Cinco de Mayo events.  Very big, beautiful flowers add color and life to the scenes.  Senoritas (unmarried women) and senoras (married women) in brightly-colored clothes and senors (men, married or not) in traditional Mexican clothes dance to the mariachi bands’ music.  The red, white, and green Mexican flag adorns walls.  Almost everyone at the festivals or parties is wearing bright clothing of red, yellow, green, ponk or purple. 

Parties in private homes feature Mexican food and drink.  Appetizers can be nachos or tortilla chips with salsa, as well as other dishes.  Entrees may be burritos, enchiladas, tostadas, tacos, huevos rancheros, or a great number of other Mexican dishes, often made by people who know what they should taste like.  If not home-made, they can be bought frozen and heated for the party.

The beverages served at parties may include iced tea, hot chocolate with cinnamon, or sodas for children.  Adults not having soft drinks can have Mexican beer or tequila.   Tequila is an alcoholic drink which can be served straight or on-the-rocks (iced).  It is also used to make margaritas.  Because their drinks taste so good, unlike many other alcoholic drinks, people at times drink too much tequila.  They don’t always realize how much alcohol they are consuming by doing that. 

Laws against drunk driving, and slogans such as “Don’t drink and drive” apply on Cinco de Mayo, as well as any other time of the year.  Law enforcement agencies are on the lookout for drunk drivers on holidays, even Cinco de Mayo, just as they are on other holidays.  Having fun at a Cinco de Mayo party is not worth having your driver’s license suspended or paying huge fines.

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