5 of the Biggest and Best Places to Celebrate Cinco de Mayo This Weekend

Cinco de Mayo is a truly Mexican-American holiday, celebrating not the history behind the holiday — the humble Mexican defeat of a well-equipped French invasion in the town of Puebla — but rather the spirit and pride of the victorious underdog. Interestingly, it’s really not a big holiday in Mexico, while north of the border it’s widely celebrated as an excuse to drink terrible margaritas.

If you’re looking for an excuse to legit connect with Mexican culture, food, and communities though, there are proper Cinco de Mayo festivals happening near just about every major Mexican-American community in the country. Here are five of the biggest and best places to celebrate Cinco de Mayo the right way this year:

3Bushwick, New York

New Brunswick cinco de mayo

Cinco at House of Yes

Sunday

Cinco de Mayo in New York City is so big that it can’t be contained in one cohesive event. There’s the parade by Central Park on Sunday, the annual 116th Street block party in Spanish Harlem, and parties basically everywhere. Possibly the most cutting edge celebration will be happening at Brooklyn’s House of Yes, which will be hosting a free “fiesta fiasco of cross-cultural pollination” all day Sunday. They have one simple request for attendees: “Just please do not wear Mexican culture as a costume.”