By Prince Kapone | Weaponized Information | May 5, 2025

Cinco de Mayo and the Settler Fetish: America’s Drunken Denial of Empire

They’ll toast to “Mexican pride” over tequila shots this Cinco de Mayo—while ICE vans circle the block. They’ll dress in sombreros, guzzle margaritas, shout “¡Viva México!”—all while cheering politicians who build higher walls, who deport migrants by the millions, who make Mexico’s poverty their profit. That’s the American way: to celebrate a struggle they helped create, while crushing those still caught inside it.

But let’s back up. What are they even celebrating?

In 1862, French imperial troops marched into Mexico under Napoleon III, hoping to carve out a new colonial outpost. But at the Battle of Puebla, a ragtag army of Mexican peasants, farmers, and Indigenous fighters shocked the world by defeating the European invaders. It wasn’t Mexico’s independence day (that came in 1810). It wasn’t even a total victory—the French regrouped and occupied Mexico City the following year. But for one glorious day, a colonized people stood their ground against one of the world’s strongest empires.

That’s what Cinco de Mayo marks: a moment of anti-colonial defiance. A refusal to kneel to imperial power. A reminder that even in the shadow of occupation, the oppressed can fight back.

So how did this day of revolutionary resistance turn into a corporate booze fest?

The answer, as always, is empire. In the 1960s and 70s, Chicano organizers in the U.S. resurrected Cinco de Mayo as a symbol of pride and resistance, linking the struggle at Puebla to their own fight against racism, police brutality, and exploitation. For them, Cinco de Mayo wasn’t about tacos and tequila—it was about solidarity. But as their movement grew, so did the appetite of corporate America.

By the 1980s, beer companies saw an opportunity. Miller, Budweiser, Corona—they poured millions into ads turning Cinco de Mayo into “the Mexican St. Patrick’s Day,” selling culture like a six-pack. The holiday was depoliticized, sanitized, and wrapped in neon beer signs. The radical roots were ripped out. In their place: an empty party, a cartoon of Mexico, a commodified celebration sold back to white America for profit.

That’s settler fetishism in action. A colonial empire loves to play dress-up with the symbols of the people it exploits. It loves to consume the culture while rejecting the people. It loves to eat the taco, drink the mezcal, wear the serape—then call ICE when the dishwasher asks for a raise.

Because here’s the real kicker: the same America that toasts Cinco de Mayo spends the other 364 days making war on Mexico and Mexicans. The U.S. has spent over a century pillaging Mexico’s land, labor, and resources—from annexing half the country in 1848 to orchestrating coups to imposing trade deals like NAFTA that gutted Mexican farmers and flooded the countryside with poverty. And today, the border is a militarized war zone. Migrant families are separated, asylum seekers caged, and record numbers of deportations carried out under Trump and Biden alike.

So what exactly are we celebrating?

Celebrating Mexican resistance while ignoring U.S. imperialism is like cheering for the Haitian Revolution while supporting French reparations. It’s like wearing a Che t-shirt while investing in Raytheon. It’s the hollow gesture of an empire that wants the flavors of resistance but not its substance.

And yet, even in this commodified spectacle, something dangerous remains. A spark. A memory. A question. Every time a drunk frat bro yells “Viva México!” he unwittingly invokes a revolutionary tradition his own country tried—and keeps trying—to crush. Every margarita toast is a haunted ritual, echoing a history of defiance they can’t quite erase.

Because Mexico’s fight isn’t over. It lives in the Indigenous communities resisting extractive megaprojects. It lives in the mothers searching for disappeared sons. It lives in the workers shutting down maquiladoras. It lives in the migrants who cross the border not just to survive—but to claim back a sliver of what empire stole.

And in the U.S., it lives in every community fighting ICE raids, every organizer defending tenants, every worker defying wage theft, every child chanting “sin papeles, sin miedo.”

So this Cinco de Mayo, don’t settle for settler pageantry. Don’t let the symbols of resistance be swallowed by the machine that made them necessary. Use the day to tell the truth: that the fight at Puebla isn’t ancient history—it’s a living struggle. A struggle that crosses borders, defies flags, and demands solidarity.

Raise your glass if you must. But raise your fist, too. And make it mean something.

Because the empire doesn’t need another holiday. It needs an end.