Cinco de Mayo in Puebla

5 de mayo – It’s not Mexico’s Independence Day!

I had the fortune of hosting friend & departing PC volunteer, Kurt, and spending 5 de mayo here in Puebla before his flight back to the US. Since this minor holiday celebrates Mexico’s victory over France in the battle of Puebla, this is the only city in Mexico that celebrates it in a formal way. The main event was a large parade on the Boulevard 5 de Mayo full of military, school, and civil services entrants mixed with floats commemorating Mexican history. Most people here had the day off in Puebla for 5 de mayo, so there were a LOT of people lining the street for the parade.

Yes, those are real people on the float!

The parade was generally like those in the US in terms of starting late, lasting hours, being festive, and being full of marching bands. But there were some big differences:

It moved FAST. It was a constant marching pace with nobody holding up the show. It would have been way too long at the American pace.
The style was consistently militaristic for the groups. The schools – not just bands, but all (?) students and teachers – marched in formation with matching uniforms or suits.
No candy thrown.
The focus was different. It was squarely on national & local pride … NOT on humor, political candidates, beauty queens in convertibles, nor advertisements for local businesses. As Kurt noted, at least some Shriners’ cars would have been nice.
Some crowd behavior stood out to me as different from the US and also out of place for Mexico. I consider Mexicans to be very respectful individually but for some reason at parades, there’s a surprising amount of catcalling and even a little heckling. It’s probably not shocking that the traffic cops got the brunt of the heckling and groups of women such as nursing schools and female military battalions got the most catcalls, but some cretins extended it to middle school color guards (but not for their OWN daughter’s/sister’s school, I’m sure). The women of the crowd only got in on the act once – for the sailors of the Mexican navy whose crisp white uniforms evoked screams aplenty. Sorry ladies, I didn’t get any good pictures of them.

Other than seeing the parade, it was a low key day. I didn’t see any big fiesta for the holiday like I anticipated. But we did step into La Feria de Puebla (state fair) which is being held at this time also. Compared to other fairs in Mexico, this one was tiny and not terribly interesting other than an opportunity to browse the goods of artisans from around the state of Puebla.