La Cucaracha by Lalo Alcaraz 

‘PENDEJO’ TROPHY — House Speaker John Boehner’s gaffe this past week — canceling CInco de Mayo — received barely a ripple of attention in the daily white press, even here in politics-loco Washington. But those of us who learned Mexican history from Anheuser- Busch, Coors and Corona are placing it in our Political Pendejo trophy 

case next to Newt Gingrich’s “Hablador de la Casa” message to La Raza a few years back.

“The elephant-guys have fired another shot into their already riddled left foot,” Link columnist Andy Porras quotes a popular Latino radio personality in Northern California.

It’s true that in Mexico, El Cinco runs a distant second, to El Dieciséis de Septiembre as a major day of celebration. But among Mexican- American families in the Southwest and other Latinos and beer drinkers countrywide it leaves El Dieciséis in its polvo.

Springtime is picnic time.

It’s true that not all of us know exactly what happened or where as the cause for celebration.Years ago, when this publication was in knee-pants, Mexican-American members of Congress decided to educate their non-Hispanic colleagues as to how indigenous Mexican farmers defeated a well-trained, handsomely uniformed French army in the 1862 Battle of Puebla.

So a pair of our elected representatives composed a stirring account describing Mexico’s epic victory, They entered it into the Congressional Record.

Their only problem was they didn’t spell too well.

They reported that the historic event occurred in Pueblo, which is the home of the state of Colorado’s largest chili festival, not Puebla, where the farmers’ heroics occurred in Central Mexico.

Let me share a final Cinco de Mayo scrapbook entry with you — one for the road.¡Salud!

Ready to be enshrined also among artifacts in our Cinco trophy case is a conversation overheard by Hispanic Link publisher Charlie Ericksen. Two California legislators were conversing as they exited the state Capitol building in Sacramento.

The tall one asked the short one, “By the way, when is Cinco de Mayo?”

(Read former Weekly Report editor Erick Galindo’s commentary on Boehner’s “trangression.”)