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22 March 2002 - The San Diego Union-Tribune
Group has sober take on Cinco de Mayo
All-you-can-drink image of holiday is under fire

By Deborah Ensor

Angered at the perception that booze and Cinco de Mayo go hand in hand, a group of Latino activists wants to restore the respect and true meaning of the Mexican holiday. "We are tired of the alcohol industry turning our holidays into all-you-can-drink events," said Jovita Hurtado, chairwoman of the newly formed San Diego Cinco de Mayo con Orgullo (with pride) Coalition. "Our culture is not for sale. Our people are not for sale."

Hurtado and dozens of social service workers, business people and community residents met at Chicano Park in Barrio Logan yesterday to launch a campaign to celebrate the holiday without alcohol or cigarettes. "For a lot of my friends, it's all about beer and parties," said 15-year-old Aliana Lopez. "But for me, it's more of a family thing, a cultural thing. I want to teach my friends about the real meaning of Cinco de Mayo." Aliana is the first Cinco de Mayo queen for the San Diego group, which was formed in August. The coalition is joining dozens of other similar organizations across the state to protest the alcohol and tobacco industries' influence on the holiday.

Liquor and beer companies often sponsor or advertise Cinco de Mayo events, said Jose Alvarez of Communities Against Substance Abuse, and they often heavily market their products during the holiday. Sponsors of last year's Cinco de Mayo celebration in Old Town included Jose Cuervo, Cointreau and Tequiza. The movement to celebrate the holiday sober started in 1997, and organizations work with communities to hold alcohol-free and tobacco-free events and to teach young people about the connection between marketing and consumption.

"The alcohol industry is using our culture as a tool to market their products," said Bernardo Rosa of the California Latino Leadership United for Healthy Communities. "But we are working to teach kids about their culture, which in turn raises their self-esteem." Alvarez added that the San Diego Coalition is working "to restore the true meaning of the holiday." "If you ask anybody about Cinco de Mayo, they associate it with drinking, as a time to party," he said. "But it should be about family, it should be about culture, it should be about heritage." Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, in which the Mexican Army, out-gunned and out-numbered, defeated French invaders who were trying to annex Mexico to Napoleon's empire.

It is not considered a major holiday in most of Mexico but gained significance in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s during the Chicano rights movement. "It has come to symbolize the struggle for sovereignty, self-determination and the commitment to fight even when the odds seem insurmountable," reads a brochure for the coalition. But over the years, Alvarez said, Cinco de Mayo celebrations have lost some of their political character and for many young people have become simply another holiday with big parties and parades – and more alcohol abuse, drunken driving arrests and violence. The coalition's first alcohol-and smoke-free Cinco de Mayo con Orgullo parade and celebration is planned for May 4 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The parade begins at Memorial Academy Junior High on Logan Avenue and ends at Chicano Park in Barrio Logan.