Viva la Liberty!

Yesterday was the Fifth of May, Cinco de Mayo. I went to a local establishment that serves Mexican Food. I had the Chili Verde Burrito. It was delicious. I enjoy the fun, diverse atmosphere that exists for such a day. I have to admit, I don't really know the foundation of Cinco de Mayo as a celebrated day. I had naively assumed it was somewhat similar to the Fourth of July is in the USA... Not so.

It is not a national holiday in Mexico; more of a regional holiday. It commemorates a victory of some 4,500 lightly armed militia over a much larger and more outfitted army from France who were coming to collect on defaulted debt from Mexico. The victory was short lived after Napolean III sent a greater army that ended up defeating and conquering Mexico. The French occupation and rule of Mexico wasn't long. The end of the Civil War in the USA allowed the USA to come to the aid of their Mexican neighbors to help take back Mexican sovereignty.

Cinco de Mayo though, has little recognition across Mexico, and is very strongly celebrated in Puebla, where it was fought.

It really is a great and fascinating historical occasion. Who doesn't love the story of the small, untrained farmers and militia, fending off a well trained army? I would say it speaks to all human kind.

Fast forward several hundred years though, to 2010. Cinco de Mayo gets recognition and is celebrated in the USA. At present there is a strong adversarial debate over immigration, illegal immigration (primarily accross the Mexico/US border), and legislation in Arizona that has stirred up a hornets nest in this arena.

At a school in San Francisco, CA., four students were asked to go home and change their attire because it was deemed "incendiary" and may lead to fights on campus. The heinous attire was none other than (drum roll please) "Old Glory"! They donned American Flag bandannas and tee shirts with American flags on them.

One of the guilty young men said, "They said we could wear it on any other day,but today is sensitive to Mexican-Americans because it's supposed to be their holiday so we were not allowed to wear it today."

Look, I am realistic and acknowledge that these boys were deliberately dressed in defiance against the celebration. Teen aged boys will do such things, I know, having been there myself.

It did lead to this statement by a fellow student who didn't see it quite like the disruptive boys did when she said, "I think they should apologize cause it is a Mexican Heritage Day. We don't deserve to be get disrespected like that. We wouldn't do that on Fourth of July."

Now look, I think the celebration is fun and such an act of heroic defeat of a better armed adversary is commendable. I think the victory of Puebla is awesome!

However when students in the USA are taking full advantage of what I deem their constitutional right to peaceably assemble and their right to freedom of expression (you know those Bill of Rights things), how can this be deemed incendiary?

I went ahead and asked around to friends of mine what Cinco de Mayo was. Most thought, oh it's Mexican Independence Day. One of them, whose mother is Mexican and father is Caucasian knew it wasn't Mexican Independence Day, but didn't really know what it was.

There seems to be some sort of false concept of what the reality of Cinco de Mayo is/was. With that in mind, is it the job of the administrators at the school to act in the way they did? Were there actions appropriate? Were those flag wearing heathens in the wrong and due some form of punishment?

For my money, I say no and that the administrators job is to first and foremost educate! They're educators. There was an opportunity to engage the students and provide for discourse and communication. But instead for fear of violence to a peaceable display, the administrators allowed misinformation and miseducation to continue.

I think as a result of the administrator to act in their area of accountability, they caused more harm than they prevented. They didn't engage young minds and foster a sense of community within their school. They fostered divide and disdain. How did our students, our communities, our nation benefit from this?