In the minds of many Americans, Cinco de Mayo is an excuse for conspicuous inebriation masquerading as a cultural holiday. Often confused with Mexican Independence Day (which is actually Sept. 16), the celebration originated in California and Oregon among pro-Union Latinos during the American Civil War.

On May 5, 1862, the Mexican army defeated a much larger force of French invaders at the Battle of Puebla. While not a tactically significant victory, the unlikely defeat of Napoleon III's forces came to symbolize the triumph of democracy over monarchy and oppression. Latinos in the U.S. at the time celebrated Cinco de Mayo as anti-Confederate and pro-freedom.

So the holiday's provenance is on the side of the angels, but 150 years later, it's morphed into a garish display of cheap sombreros, fake mustaches and watered-down margaritas. The only region of Mexico that celebrates it is Puebla, and Mexican Americans rarely join in.

So what else has been masquerading as Mexican?

1. Hard-shell tacos

The Aztecs were making soft corn tortillas long before European contact, and in the centuries that followed, people on both sides of the border folded tortillas around fillings to make soft tacos or deep-fried them to make flat tostadas.

But the ubiquitous, U-shaped hard taco came much later. It's first recorded appearance was in 1914 in the California Mexican-Spanish Cookbook by Bertha Haffner-Ginger. Hard shell recipes popped up in Mexican cookbooks in the 1940s, but they didn't gain widespread popularity until Taco Bell founder Glenn Bell started carrying pre-made taco shells in his fast food restaurants in the 1950s, which decreased prep time (and flavor), paving the way for Taco Bell to become the food of choice for midnight stoners and future San Angelenos.

2. The Most Interesting Man in the World


Jewish New Yorker, BU alum and Vermont resident Jonathan Goldsmith has been the Dos Equis spokesman since 2007. He's also a badass who's been killed onscreen by John Wayne, stolen groupies from Warren Beatty, and sailed with Argentine heartthrob Fernando Lamas, the inspiration for the Most Interesting Man character and father of actor Lorenzo Lamas (remember Renegade? Yeah, umm...neither do I...)

But Dos Equis is the real deal, first brewed in Mexico in 1897 by a German immigrant and now owned by Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery in Monterrey.

3. The Macarena

Dale a tu cuerpo alegría, Macarena
Que tu cuerpo e' pa' darle alegría y cosa' buena
Dale a tu cuerpo alegría, Macarena
Heeeey, she's not Mexican!

The titular Macarena is actually Venezuelan, and she's a flamenco teacher named Diana Patricia Cubillán Herrera.

Antonio Romero Monge and Rafael Ruiz Perdigones formed the pop duo Los Del Río in Spain in the 1960s. By 1992, they were fading into obscurity. "We played to groups of aging, nostalgic Spaniards in Latin America, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Morocco," Monge told a Billboard reporter.

During one of their lounge act shows in Caracas, Cubillán so impressed them with her dancing that they improvised the chorus to the song on the spot. The song made the Latin club circuit for a few years, but it didn't gain cross-cultural appeal until the 1996 English-language remix by the Miami-based Bayside Boys.

The Macarena topped the U.S. Billboard charts that year, making appearances at every bat mitzvah, quinceañera, bingo parlor and Midwestern wedding in the country.

And now it's in your head.

4. Zorro

Sure, he spoke with an accent onscreen, but Guy Williams, star of Walt Disney's 1957 hit TV series Zorro, was actually an Italian kid from New York named Armand Catalano. Still, fans so often assumed he was Latino that he fell into the role, retiring to Argentina in his later years, where he gave fencing demonstrations with a traveling circus.

In fact, no incarnation of The Fox, So Cunning and Free has ever been Mexican.

Douglas Fairbanks, the lead in the 1920 film The Mark of Zorro, was born in Colorado. Tyrone Power, who reprised the role in 1940, was from Ohio. Anthony Hopkins, who played an aging Don Diego in 1998's The Mask of Zorro, is Welsh (as is Catherine-Zeta Jones, who played his daughter Elena).

Even the 1981 spoof Zorro, the Gay Blade, which leaked stereotypes and offensiveness like a punctured piñata, starred George Hamilton, who's more orange than any other color.

Antonio Banderas, who played Zorro's successor opposite Hopkins, is actually Latino, but he's Spanish.

Of course, perhaps that's the most ethnically accurate portrayal of Zorro. The original Zorro stories occur in California, but they're fuzzy on dates. Many of Don Diego de la Vega's opponents are Spanish government officials, which means his exploits must have happened before Mexican independence in 1821, making him a resident of New Spain, not Mexico.

5. Limes

The guacamole you'll probably scarf down tonight is definitely Mexican—the avocado is indigenous to Mexico, Central and South America. But the lime juice that keeps it from turning brown isn't, at least not originally.

Limes were first cultivated in Persia and southeast Asia and brought to the Americas by the Spanish (along with smallpox), where they were quickly integrated into the local cuisine.

They grew well in the warm climate, and today, Mexico is the world's largest producer of limes.

Bonus facts: cilantro is also from Asia, and the wheat in flour tortillas is from the Middle East and Africa. But corn, tomatoes and chocolate are all Mexican.

6. Lupita Nyong'o

Just kidding, she's totally Mexican.

The winner of the Academy Award for her portrayal of Patsey in 12 Years a Slave was born in Mexico City, the daughter of a visiting Kenyan scholar. She holds dual citizenship in both Mexico and Kenya, studied at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (also Hampshire College and Yale), and speaks fluent Spanish (also Luo, English and Swahili).

No wonder everyone's fighting over her.