Brightly coloured bunting adorns shop windows. Supermarket end caps showcase tortilla chips, salsa and Mexican beers. Restaurant blackboards announce special menus featuring tacos and margaritas. Across US, these familiar May displays herald what many assume must be grandest national celebration in Mexico.
Yet the story behind Cinco de Mayo reveals something altogether more curious: a modest Mexican military victory that transformed, across decades and borders, into a cultural phenomenon far more enthusiastically embraced abroad than at home.
