Cinco de Mayo is also known as the Anniversary of the Battle of Puebla and Battle of Puebla Day. Some background on the battle: Mexico was attacked by foreign troops because President Benito Juárez defaulted on his payments to European nations after the war had depleted the country’s ability to pay.

When Mexico defaulted on its loans, France, Britain and Spain sent troops to demand repayment. But Napoleon III had other plans—to take the country and install a French monarch. Britain and Spain would not get involved with this, but 6,000 French troops went up against 2,000 Mexicans in the town of Puebla on May 5, 1862. So, what is Cinco de Mayo celebrating? Mexico’s victory!

When Napoleon III later returned with more forces and installed Arch-Duke Maximillian to rule, “Cinco de Mayo” became the rallying cry for the fight against the French occupation. They celebrated each year with song, dance and food to remain focused on regaining the country and retaining their heritage.

Cinco de Mayo is not a national holiday in Mexico—and according to History.com, it’s a relatively minor holiday in the country. However, it is widely celebrated in parts of Mexico, specifically Puebla, and throughout the United States where there are large Mexican-American populations.

The holiday, which is often misconstrued as the Mexican Fourth of July, is not at all what people think it is, says David E Hayes-Bautista, Director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the School of Medicine at UCLA. “Cinco de Mayo is part of the Latino experience of the American Civil War,” he says. “It’s not about the Mexican experience.”

In the early 1860s, Mexico had fallen in immense debt to France. That situation led Napoleon III, who had thought about supporting the confederacy , to send troops to not only overtake Mexico City, but also to help form a Confederate-friendly country that would neighbor the South.

“The French army was about four days from Mexico City when they had to go through the town of Puebla, and as it happened, they didn’t make it,” Hayes-Bautista says. In a David-and-Goliath style triumph, the smaller and less-equipped Mexican army held off French troops in the Battle of Puebla, on the fifth of May of 1862. (The French army returned the following year and won, but the initial Mexican victory was still impressive.)

It wasn’t until May 27 that the news of the Battle of Puebla finally reached California-based Latinos, who had been feeling disheartened as Union forces were falling, quite disastrously so, to Robert E. Lee’s Confederate troops. The news from Mexico was doubly good for that population: not only was Mexico victorious, but California—as a free state—was also glad for the failure of the French plan to help the Confederacy. This was particularly true for residents of Hispanic origin, who had particular reason to oppose the South’s system of white supremacy.

Hayes-Bautista cites Major Jose Ramon Pico, a general who organized Spanish-speaking cavalries to fight alongside the Union in the Civil War, as a prime example of what was at stake for some Latinos.

“By the time [Latinos in California] heard about the news of the battle, they began to raise money for the Mexican troops and they formed a really important network of patriotic organizations,” says Jose Alamillo, a professor of Chicano studies at California State University Channel Islands. “They had to kind of make the case for fighting for freedom and democracy and they were able to link the struggle of Mexico to the struggle of the Civil War, so there were simultaneous fights for democracy.”

Source Time Magazine