Cinco de Mayo...

The first Cinco de Mayo celebration I remember was in the first grade - we were living in Orange, California and we were in a largely Hispanic neighborhood. There was a parade for the whole school! Needless to say it's still one of the more vivid memories I have of our family's time in Orange. I still love Cinco de Mayo. As it's not a holiday commonly celebrated in Mexico itself, I feel that it is something unique to Mexican-American culture. As a born and (mostly) raised Southern Californian, I feel like this is a time of year that we really get to celebrate our history, unity and diversity.

Dictionary(dot)com's Word of the Day today - not unlike this holiday - comes to us via Mexico:

vamoose \va-MOOS\, verb:

1. To leave hurriedly or quickly; decamp.

2. To leave hurriedly or quickly from; decamp from.

Vamoose originates in the 1800s, derived from the Spanish vamos, or "let us go." The word likely entered American usage through Mexico.