And hear I thought loyalty day was celebrated every time we vote...

[WCGreen]

I don't really need to show anything to anyone.

All I have to do to be a loyal American is to speak my mind and vote.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Absolutely right.

[arely staircase]

2. Did someone say otherwise?

Seriously. I guess I am late to this one.

[WCGreen]

3. Screwy day when right wingers can show how much more loyal that the next guy...

It came into being back in the 1920's to counter the first wave of socialism scares from Europe.

Prove your loyalty, the say, stand up for the Flag no matter what it is that is hiding behind that flag.

Too often it is something bad.

[arely staircase]

5. Missed that one altogether

I am a public school teacher in Texas and we spent the day planning for Cinco de Mayo.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. You mean Mexican Independence Day? (I kid, I kid)

That is Sept 15.

The battle of Puebla...

[arely staircase]

8. is that you George? and I also kid

nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. You got no idea how many

Letters to the editor I wrote back in the 1980s and 1990s locally.

It finally sank... After we had a mass writing of letters from the graduate students at college, and twenty PhDs.

Every year they got the mandatory story not independent day.

Mebbe I should write that one for the paper.

Cinco de Mayo, like St Patricks, has become another excuse to get drunk...but

[arely staircase]

10. well there will be no drinking in my 4th grade class tomorrow

the students know very well the reason for the holiday, and we will eat a bunch of tamales their parents made, then we will sing traditional songs and break the piñatas we built on the "Loyalty Day" nobody has ever heard of.

now some of my recent arrival kids wonder why 5 de mayo is such a bigger deal here than in Mexico, as it has been popularized here in Texas by earlier arrivals from La Republica. But while others fret about something nobody pays attention to, here in Texas we will celebrate Mexican culture and Texas' Mexican heritage.

Texas - turning bluer as we turn browner.

BTW - I am in deep red East Texas, not deep Blue South Texas.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. I identify with your new arrivals

Ok, in Mexico was a day for assembly...international workers day was a day off, but the Batala de Puebla, not so much.

Now Mother's Day...oh my, puente and all...

So yeah, we were confused...

Then we got tact alerts in Tijuana, where our American neighbors came to get drunk...

[arely staircase]

12. I have done some superficial research and

have never found the genesis of our Tejano obsession with the El Cinco. Apparently it is big in cali too, based on your posts. My relatives in Mexico marvel at our dedication to it. there is a good anthropology thesis in their somewhere.

Texas has always had a different relationship with Mexico and Mexicans than other borderland states. we still, unlike cali, fund bilingual education (under the likes of Bush and Perry). I don't attribute anything to those guys other than Karl Roves ability to do the math, but shitting on the Mexicans seems to be much less of an instinct here (in the late 20th-early 21st Century) than in much more liberal states like cali, where I believe there is no bilingual education.)

And crap like AZ has pulled is not even imaginable here. Yeah some yahoo proposes it every legislative session, but it dies in committee when the gop bosses have a talk with the tea parties behind closed doors.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Actually there is

I was given a lead for a feel good story...just haven't had time to get to it.

One of our local districts won an award for bilingual education, and just not Spanish, German and Chinese.

[arely staircase]

14. then I have been misinformed

I thought it had been eliminated by referendum. Don't know where I heard that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Back in the seventies

It was

Lemon Grove had a civil rights case over that in the 30s as well

[RagAss]

4. Yeh....kiss my ass behind your flag !

Asshats.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Cocker Spanials and Woodchucks are "loyal" and unquestioning in their "loyalty".

[rug]

16. How else can we show our allegiance?

[Luminous Animal]

17. I love the picture!