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You are here: Home / Literature / LATINOPIA WORD / LATINOPIA WORD FRANCISCO ALARCÓN “CINCO DE MAYO”

LATINOPIA WORD FRANCISCO ALARCÓN “CINCO DE MAYO”

May 6, 2014 by Breht Burri

CINCO DE MAYO

 by Francisco X. Alarcón

________________________________

First of all, Cinco de Mayo

is not at all the official

Mexican Independence Day,

nor does it commemorate the first

fiesta no matter how convincing

beer commercials might sound;

it’s as unofficial as school

children telling jokes in Spanish

in English-only public schools

 

Cinco de Mayo is a battle fought

in the city of Puebla in 1862;

an outnumbered, outgunned,

ill-trained and very poor

Mexican army under the command

of Ignacio Zaragoza, a general

born in San Antonio, Texas,

defeated the superbly equipped

professional French army sent

by Napoleon III; Cinco de Mayo

became a rally of hope for a nation

 

Cinco de Mayo is a milagrito

que nunca debió pasar pero pasó;

it’s the full-blooded Zapotec

Indian President Benito Juárez

humming, “Sí se puede”

in his forced journeys

zigzagging the Republic;

Ciudad Juárez is named

after this Mexican hero

who never gave up despite

of facing superior enemy forces

 

Cinco de Mayo is primavera,

the bluest of skies y se siente alegría

y sí ya casi salimos de vacaciones

 

Cinco de Mayo is a cry

that starts in the heart,

a drum that keeps calling:

Juan, María, José acuérdense,

it’s Cinco de Mayo

and like any other day,

el Chuy sigue preso

y el Joe is unemployed

y la Rosa is a teenager

three months pregnant,

all confused, lost at school,

and without legal papers

 

Cinco de Mayo was used

once as a legal deadline

intended to close the doors

to thousands who had come

to this country searching

for a dream, a better deal,

a chance to live under the stars

 

Cinco de Mayo is community,

familia, a ritual for life,

a collective kiss en la frente,

a rainbow, una empanada,

una canción, un baile, una mirada

 

Cinco de Mayo is a rally

for protecting our civil rights

against “reasonable suspicion”

of mean-spirited, racist state

laws like SB 1070 in Arizona

 

Cinco of Mayo is a brown David

facing a menacing cruel Goliath

singing under the clear blue sky,

“sí, se puede”, “yes, we can…”

we can dream a dream of freedom

for all Dreamers and their families

 

Cinco de Mayo is a collective Moses

saying to Pharaoh and the Capitol court

of jesters, let our people live in peace,

this land is also our Promised Land

 

Cinco de Mayo is a flower watered

by our people’s tears of pain and joy;

Cinco de Mayo is each and other day,

a lesson of resistance in a era of defeat

© Francisco X. Alarcón

____________________________________________

Francisco X. Alarcón, award-winning Chicano poet and educator, is the author of thirteen volumes of poetry, including, From the Other Side of Night (University of Arizona Press 2002), Ce • Uno • One: Poems for the New Sun (Swan Scythe Press 2010),  Borderless Butterflies/Mariposas sin fronteras (Poetic Matrix Press 2014) and Canto hondo/Deep Song (University of Arizona Press 2014). He taught at the University of California, Davis before his death on January 15, 2016. He was also the creator of the Facebook page, Poets Responding to SB 1070.

 

Filed Under: LATINOPIA WORD, Literature Tagged With: Cinco De Mayo, Francisco Alarcon

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