Cinco De Mayo mani, and an existential ramble

Hello Readers!


Today I have a mani for a somewhat controversial, very "American" holiday; Cinco De Mayo. This is a holiday billed by Americans as "Mexican", although it is not really celebrated in Mexico, which makes it the perfect example of the melting pot that America is, as well as my own personal journey with my feelings about my heritage.

I've always felt a little bit awkward answering the question on surveys; you know, the one that asks, "Are you of Mexican or Latin descent?" It makes me hesitate. Even though my Grandmother was born in Mexico, grew up in Mexico, and immigrated to America as a young adult, it feels dishonest somehow to check that box.

My Grandmother had strong feelings about accepting the American culture. She worked hard to learn to speak English, and as a result, Spanish was not spoken in her home and my father didn't learn it as a native language. He did go on to learn it later in life, as a young adult, when he lived in Mexico for a couple of years to serve a mission for our church. But, as my own mother does not speak Spanish, I also did not grow up speaking it. But as a teenager, I chose to learn it in school as a kind of way to connect back to my heritage.

My Grandmother was very proud of having become a naturalized citizen of the United States. She left most of her Mexican culture at home and embraced America in almost every ways. The few things that remained from her homeland were her heavy accent and her delicious, authentic recipes. Much like this holiday, she left Mexico and created a life of her own in America, making her own version of the American experience.

Whenever I read those silly little surveys about "growing up Mexican/American", I never relate to any of it. I wasn't raised by her, and in fact saw very little of her as she lived far away from us and our visits were few and short. But she holds a very special place in my heart, and so does her country of origin.

I decided to go fairly simple on this mani, with gradient base and simple stamping over it. I ended up using a "real" stamping polish to capture all the tiny details of my stamping images.

My two mani images come from this classic Bundle Monster plate. This may actually be the only "Cinco De Mayo" plate in existence, lol, because I see it featured all over the internet today,

I also used this Born Pretty Store plate for the southwest inspired geometrics on my pointer and pinky fingers.


And that concludes my Cinco De Mayo post. Do you have strong feelings about this holiday one way or another, or do you mostly ignore it? Let me know in the comments!