About Cognitive Dissonance

 About Cognitive Dissonance and Cinco de Mayo, 

by Déborah Martel-Rogers, Ed.D.

    As we approach Cinco de Mayo, we will experience more commercials, advertisements, and events that generally portray Cinco de Mayo as a celebration around food and music. There is obviously nothing wrong with that. The contributions of the Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans, Puerto Rican Americans, Colombian Americans, Venezuelan Americans, Peruvian Americans, Chilean Americans, Argentinian Americans, Spanish Americans, Ecuatorian Americans, Guatemalan Americans, Salvadorian Americans, Honduran Americans, Costa Rican Americans, Panamanian Americans, Paraguayan Americans, and Uruguayan Americans are significant in the gastronomical and musical spheres, indeed. The question, though, is not so much whether they are important as whether we know their global significance.  

    Let's travel to the past, for instance, to the original meaning of the Cinco de Mayo, when Mexico, with 2000 soldiers,  won against 6000 French soldiers in the Battle of Puebla. Or even years later, during the Second World War, when Mexican diplomat Gilberto Bosques saved the lives of thousands of Jews in Europe as the Mexican Consul in Marseille. In contemporary years, Cesar Chavez led the first farm workers' organized nonviolent movement to improve the salaries, medical coverage, respect, and rights of farm workers, including pension benefits and humane living conditions. This last example originated in Kern County, also known as "the food capital of the world." 

    These additional historical examples, and so many others,  are not mentioned so often in our history books, though, where Cinco de Mayo is usually associated with margaritas and tacos, with an additional mention of folkloric dance and music, at most. Our LatinX, Chicano, Hispanic, and AfroLatinX students may not see themselves in this oversimplification of a celebration that is so much wider, deeper, and richer. It may be time to sprinkle it with some cognitive dissonance, which awakens their curiosity towards the wealth of linguistic, cultural, musical, gastronomical, historical, and educational knowledge that Cinco de Mayo represents in the United States of America. Feliz Cinco de Mayo. Happy Fifth of May. 

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