Why is Cinco de Mayo, a holiday commemorating a Mexican victory over the French at Puebla in 1862, so widely celebrated in California and across the United States, when it is scarcely observed in Mexico? David E. Hayes-Bautista, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at UCLA, explains the holiday is not Mexican at all, but rather an American one, created by Latinos in California during the mid-nineteenth century. (#23821)