ChooseLiberty
05-06-2010, 11:45 AM
So we all know Cinco de Mayo marks a minor skirmish of the French and Mexicans (French won that war BTW) and isn't a Mexican national holiday and Mexican Independence day is Sept 16. -
http://open.salon.com/blog/ocularnervosa/2010/04/26/viva_cinco_de_mayo
So if Cinco de Mayo isn't a major holiday in Mexico how did it come to be celebrated in the U.S. ?
Ah, now here is a good question. In the 1980's foreign beer became trendy in the U.S. Go to any frat party and you would find guys slamming Moosehead, Fosters or even Grolsch lagers. Corona decided they wanted in on this so they started marketing themselves in America. But American beer companies worried about cheep suds coming North across the border and interfering with their grip on the market. So a distributor of Henieken started a rumor that the FDA found traces of human urine in Corona and spread false reports that Mexican workers had been observed peeing into the beer at the bottling plant, allegedly.
Corona's reputation had been badly damaged and even though they had proven the rumors to be outright lies and won a lawsuit they needed something to regain their losses in the beer market. They came up with a brilliant strategy, they needed a specific holiday in which people wouldn't want to drink Canadian, Australian, German, or even U.S. beers but only Mexican brew.
The logical choice was Mexico's independence day, September 16th, but there was a problem. It seemed that Seis de Septiembre was just too ethnic and hard to pronounce for most Americans and its official name Grito de Dolores was just too confusing and hard to explain. Corona decided to look around and soon found Cinco de Mayo, the very name just rolled off the tongue and didn't cause fear among U.S. beer drinkers, it sounded fun.
And so with a heavy marketing campaign Corona started promoting the Cinco de Mayo holiday around the U.S.. Americans, who are not shy about celebrating a holiday that involves dancing, eating and especially drinking, embraced the new holiday even though they had no idea what it was about. Spreading outward from the border states it now is a party all over America. People come out to celebrate Hispanic or Latino culture and nobody really cares about the actual origin as long as the beer keeps flowing.
http://open.salon.com/blog/ocularnervosa/2010/04/26/viva_cinco_de_mayo
So if Cinco de Mayo isn't a major holiday in Mexico how did it come to be celebrated in the U.S. ?
Ah, now here is a good question. In the 1980's foreign beer became trendy in the U.S. Go to any frat party and you would find guys slamming Moosehead, Fosters or even Grolsch lagers. Corona decided they wanted in on this so they started marketing themselves in America. But American beer companies worried about cheep suds coming North across the border and interfering with their grip on the market. So a distributor of Henieken started a rumor that the FDA found traces of human urine in Corona and spread false reports that Mexican workers had been observed peeing into the beer at the bottling plant, allegedly.
Corona's reputation had been badly damaged and even though they had proven the rumors to be outright lies and won a lawsuit they needed something to regain their losses in the beer market. They came up with a brilliant strategy, they needed a specific holiday in which people wouldn't want to drink Canadian, Australian, German, or even U.S. beers but only Mexican brew.
The logical choice was Mexico's independence day, September 16th, but there was a problem. It seemed that Seis de Septiembre was just too ethnic and hard to pronounce for most Americans and its official name Grito de Dolores was just too confusing and hard to explain. Corona decided to look around and soon found Cinco de Mayo, the very name just rolled off the tongue and didn't cause fear among U.S. beer drinkers, it sounded fun.
And so with a heavy marketing campaign Corona started promoting the Cinco de Mayo holiday around the U.S.. Americans, who are not shy about celebrating a holiday that involves dancing, eating and especially drinking, embraced the new holiday even though they had no idea what it was about. Spreading outward from the border states it now is a party all over America. People come out to celebrate Hispanic or Latino culture and nobody really cares about the actual origin as long as the beer keeps flowing.