Cinco de Mayo: I'm a Mexican Buddhist

If you are, I am, too!

What does it mean to be a "Mexican Buddhist"? Born and raised in Los Angeles, which is still in many ways Mexico just like it originally was, I went to visit my brother in Orange County. We had recently returned from skiing at Mammoth, where I would meditate in the snow for fun outside the sliding glass door. I didn't realize his young daughter would watch me. So as I'm talking to him in his very modern kitchen, she yells, "Tio! Tio, look!"

Alyssa's a Mexican Buddhist, too

I stick my head into the living room, where she is wearing a Peruvian cap with tassels seated in full lotus with perfect poise focused on her breath. "I've been practicing!" I didn't know what I was looking at. I thought I was the Mexican Buddhist (Chicano/a, Latin, Hispanic, whatever). Oh, to have had a phone camera in hand at that moment! In lieu of that, we've tried to reenact the moment with a mannequin.

Frida Kahlo crossed the US border from Mexico

Happy Mexican Independence Day (El Grito de Dolores, "The Cry of Dolores [Hidalgo]," whose name literally means "pains"), which is NOT today. That's on Sept. 16th every year.

It's largely celebrated only in South Mexico, mostly in the state where an important act of colonial resistance took place. Here in Middle Mexico (Los Angeles, SoCal, extending from San Diego up to about Fresno), we celebrate the 4th of July after the 5th of May (lit., Cinco de Mayo) in much the same way. But they're not the same, and no one cares.

The Avian (Eagle) Bird People?

In the ongoing fight to resist European colonial occupation and exploitation, it's important to remember a "free and sovereign state" called Puebla in the United States of Mexico (Mexico's official name, Estados Unidos Mexicanos), is celebrating today. Is it the arrival of Buddhism? No, most Mexicans have no idea that la Dharma arrived in California, the Southwest, and Mexico in ancient times long before Christianity, Catholicism, or Columbus' aftermath the Conquistadors.

• An Inglorious Columbus: or Evidence that Hwui Shen and a Party of Buddhist Monks from Afghanistan discovered America in the 5h Century, A.D. (by Edward Payson Vining, 1885) Internet Archive
• How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America (by Rick Fields)

What is "Mexico"?

Ask a Mexican! (Prof. Arellano)

"Mexico" [a, b] is officially called the United Mexican States [c] and is a country in NORTH America, not south, not even central. But to distinguish it from its two other parts (the USA and Canada), it sometimes gets referred to as Mesoamerica.

It borders the USA to the north, Guatemala and Belize to the southeast, while having maritime boundaries with the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Caribbean Sea to the southeast, and the Gulf of Mexico (which would seem to be part of the Atlantic Ocean) to the east.

Racism/colorism in Mexico?

Where did Mexico's racist "caste (casta) system" come from? Spain 

What do Mexicans look like?

Mexico covers 761,610 square miles (1,972,550 km2) [12] and is now the thirteenth-largest country in the world by land area, having had a giant portion of its land occupied and stolen by the USA.

With a population exceeding 130 million, Mexico is the tenth-most populous country in the world (possibly the largest country if its annexed land and population were restored) and is home to the largest number of native Spanish speakers [1].

Mestiza/mescla (blend/mixture) Karolina Vidales Valdovinos: Miss Mexico

But Spanish was imposed on Mexicans on pain of death by Conquerors (Conquistadores), colonizers, plunderers from Spain, Southwest Europe.

Gringos welcome: Come swim in clear sinkholes, clean beaches

Mexico's original language, if it had only one, would be Nahuatl (an Uto-Aztecan language of the Mexica people, who called their country "Mexico").

An Inglorious Columbus, 1885

Its religion would likely be Buddhism (due to the influence of early Buddhist missionaries from Afghanistan and China because the West Coast from BC to Mexico is the mysterious land Chinese Buddhist explorers found, wrote about, and named fUSAng), Indigenous shamanism (animism, polytheism), or Native American spirituality were it not for colonial imposition of imperial Roman Catholicism, which rode in on the back of the Virgin Mary and her local appearance as La Virgen de Guadalupe). The Buddhism that thrives there today is a recent arrival, likely unaware of earlier missionary work.

• Buddhism in the West (east of East Asia)

AI, what is Cinco de Mayo? - Let me explain, Gringo.

The Mexica speak Nahuatl

Mexico City is the capital and largest city, which ranks among the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. (Los Angeles, a Mexican pueblo and city for most of its history, is similarly large -- a megalopolis on par with its Asian twin Bangkok in Buddhist Thailand).

Mexico is also the northwesternmost country in Latin America.

The human presence in Mexico dates back to at least 8,000 BC. Mesoamerica, a great cradle of civilization, was home to numerous advanced societies, including the:

Aztec Mexica goddess: Queen Cali

• Olmecs,
• Maya,
• Zapotecs,
• Teotihuacan civilization,
• Purépecha.

Spanish colonization overthrew and enslaved the dominant Aztec Empire (from Aztlan, possibly Atlantis or Great Tartary), establishing the Southwestern European colony of "New Spain" (full of soldiers and priests from the Iberian Peninsula) with its capital at Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City).

Mexico became a major center of the transatlantic economy, fueled by the massive mining of silver that changed the world economy and the forced labor of Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans [descendants of Afro-Caribbeans, Olmec-Africans, Black skinned indigenous peoples of the Americas and/or Polynesia?]

Who's the current imperial power around here?

The 1810–1821 Mexican War of Independence ended colonial Spanish rule and led to the creation of the First Mexican Empire, which quickly collapsed into the short-lived First Mexican Republic. In 1848, the new USA (an extension of British Empire) stole nearly half the territory of Mexico during what the U.S. calls the "Mexican–American War." More

• Frida Kahlo | MoMA

Mexicans are world's most diverse (blended) people, all colors: brown, red, black, white, yellow...

• When Americans “celebrate” Cinco de Mayo #pelirroja #cincodemayo #latina #ifykyk #shorts - YouTube; Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, Pfc. Sandoval, Xochitl (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit Mexico