Cinco de Mayo a celebration of shared humanity

Why is Cinco de Mayo celebrated more widely in the United States than in Mexico itself?

A long history of discrimination explains why minorities seek to celebrate their origins; they simply need acknowledgment of their culture. America’s ethnic populations are growing at a faster rate than its white populations. The resultant fear means Latino-Americans live in an America that frequently is unwelcoming, often difficult, sometimes dangerous.

Cinco de Mayo is a day for those fears to be set aside. And so for one day, for a few moments, music, food, dance, the language spoken by grandparents are celebrated; and for that one day skin color or language or heritage are openly enjoyed. The rest of the year, as Esperanza, the young narrator says in "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros, “All brown all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight. Yeah. That is how it goes and goes.” Although the setting for that novel is Chicago, driving while Mexican is not a joke in Michigan either.

But every day of the year, the Diego Rivera murals in the Detroit Institute of Arts enrich our community. Inspired by Rivera, Detroit muralist Elton Monroy Durán brought brilliant murals to southwest Detroit streets, inspiring young residents to see themselves as a vital part of their home city. Of Duran’s 20 murals situated in Michigan, nine are in southwest Detroit. Murals have become a popular way to revitalize our communities; many are a result of the artistry of brown artists who enrich us all.

The literary gifts of authors whose homeland is South or Central America are also impossible to overlook: works by Nobel author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Sandra Cisneros, Carlos Fuentes and many others enrich readers. The Midwest is home to Latino writers who draw upon their heritage and reveal how the subtle and not-so-subtle prejudices of white America have damaged lives for generations. One of the most impactful and beautiful short stories I ever shared with students was written by Chicago-based Hugo Martinez-Serros as he describes the abiding strength of a father for his sons as he guides them through life in a poverty-stricken Chicago neighborhood. It is a story of courage and familial love.

Michigan has benefitted from immigrants in many ways according to the report, “The Contributions of New Americans in Michigan,” which states “Today, the Great Lakes state is home to more than 640,000 individuals who were born in another country. Such immigrants serve as everything from college professors to mechanical engineers, making them critical contributors to Michigan’s economic success overall.” The rate of entrepreneurship among immigrants is higher than that of the population as a whole, accounting for 8.8% of all entrepreneurs. This in turn brings higher employment, more taxpayers, and active communities and more than one in every 14 dollars paid in state and local taxes. Additionally, “Despite making up 6.5 percent of the state’s population, foreign-born Michiganders made up 15 percent of STEM workers in the state in 2014.” Immigrants, both documented and undocumented are here to work. In our towns and on our farms, a majority of them are actively working and contributing taxes and social security funds.

Heritage holidays remind all of us of a simple truth: Our ancestors all came from somewhere else, some other land, often some other continent. We all are Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, Juneteenth offers all Americans a moment to reflect on our slave-owning heritage, Ramadan brings us closer to our Muslim neighbors, Hannukah embraces our Jewish neighbors, Polish neighborhoods treat us to pączki … and so on. Each of our family trees shows us our roots in other lands. Sadly, many of our ancestors made every effort to erase that past, to lose the language, change the spelling of names, teach children to blend in. And gradually we began to fear other cultures…

Unless our family descends from Native Americans, each of our ancestors brought new customs, new values. America thrives through diversity.

Cinco de Mayo is a beautiful celebration of our shared humanity.

Sharon Kourous is a member of Stronger Together Huddle, a group engaged in supporting and promoting the common good of all. She is a former teacher and resides in Monroe. She can be reached at mcneil102@icloud.com.

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Sharon Kourous: Cinco de Mayo a celebration of shared humanity