Mexican American business owners and Latino cultural leaders are using Cinco de Mayo as a chance to reclaim what the holiday represents, with some restaurants building programming that emphasizes Mexican history and community education rather than stereotypes. Nayomie Mendoza, who owns Cuernavaca’s Grill in Los Angeles, said she has become accustomed to the way the holiday is often celebrated in the U.S. — tacos, margaritas and mariachi — but she plans a different focus this year.
Mendoza said her festivities will still feature traditional mariachi and Mexican cuisine, but they will also include a nod to Mexican perseverance over the French in the Battle of Puebla over 160 years ago. She said she prefers a celebration that reflects “everything that as a community we’re enduring today,” and she framed her programming as a direct response to the pressures Latino communities are facing.
“Just looking at how much they did with very little resources,” Mendoza said. “It just showed resilience. So, on Cinco de Mayo we always make it a testament of our resilience.”
The push to make the holiday more historically grounded is also tied, Mendoza said, to a broader climate shaped by heightened immigration enforcement that has targeted Latino communities. Restaurants are not the first group to rethink how Cinco de Mayo is portrayed, but Latino leaders have increasingly emphasized history and community as a way to combat negative stereotypes, and this year those messages are showing up more prominently in restaurant events.
Sehila Mota Casper, director of Latinos in Heritage Conservation, said the celebrations are “noticeably embracing traditional Mexican culture and focused on preservation.” She said the goal is education and knowledge sharing, adding, “These are just incredible moments of educating and knowledge sharing,” and that “the more we educate, the more knowledge we share, the better a community and people we become.”
Some restaurant owners are also trying to shift what they offer during the holiday from party staples toward what they describe as authentic food and cooking traditions. Raul Luis, who owns Birrieria Chalio Mexican Restaurant in Los Angeles and Fort Worth, Texas, said he wants customers to eat and drink the kinds of “guisados” — traditional Mexican braises or stews served as taco filling — that he said one would be served when invited into a Mexican family’s home. Luis said well-made, traditional cooking can keep customers coming back even when they are not Hispanic, and he called Cinco de Mayo “the ultimate opportunity for restaurants to take advantage of that moment and bring them in and entice them to authentic Mexican food.”
Cinco de Mayo marks the anniversary of the 1862 victory by Mexican troops over invading French forces at the Battle of Puebla, when Mexican soldiers led by Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza overcame larger and better-equipped French forces. In Mexico, reenactments are held annually in Puebla’s central city to commemorate the victory, with participants dressing as Mexican and French troops and as Zacapoaxtlas — the Indigenous and farmer contingent that helped Mexican troops win.
In the U.S., May 5 is widely viewed as a day to celebrate Mexican American culture, with festivities that can include parades, street food, block parties, mariachi competitions and folkloric dance such as folklórico, which features whirling dancers in bright dresses. But activists and scholars have long said the holiday’s meaning in the U.S. can become confused or flattened, with marketing that relies on stereotypes such as fake mustaches and oversized sombreros, and a common mix-up between Cinco de Mayo and Mexican Independence Day, which is on Sept. 16.
Against that backdrop, Mendoza said her community’s experience has included fear shaped by politics and public messaging. The article described that since returning to the White House in 2025, President Donald Trump has continued to label Mexican immigrants as criminals and gang members and that Latino communities have faced pressure from hard-line immigration tactics, including official social media posts and policy actions such as a federally led English-only initiative and a ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Mendoza said, too, that the restaurant has faced tough conditions beyond politics, including rising costs across the industry, even as Cuernavaca’s Grill is set to mark its 20th anniversary. As part of her Cinco de Mayo plans, she said she will invite customers to contribute to a food and toy drive intended to support people who are struggling.
“This is a testament of our resilience,” Mendoza said. “It’s a testament of our hard work. It is pride to our community and everything that we’ve accomplished.”