The Bronx Ink

Isaias Gonzales, Grupo Fenix

Damaris Hernandez, Our Lady of Refuge

Omar Corona, Metate Restaurant

Silvestre Rosas, Guadalupita store

Gregorio Castro, Mexico Sport Center

Margarita glasses clinked, and Corona beer flowed in bars and restaurants around the borough, as businesses lured their customers with Cinco de Mayo specials.

The date honors the victory of Mexican patriots over French invaders, at the battle of Puebla in 1862.

It is so widely commercialized and so often celebrated by non-Mexicans that some call it the least Mexican of Mexican holidays.

To find out how special this date is for Mexican Bronxites, we asked five local residents how they will celebrate Cinco de Mayo, and how they are bringing their Mexican culture to the Bronx. Click on each picture to find out more.

(Video by Camilo Hannibal Smith)

In growing Mexican American communities around the United States, DJs like Mister Zamba help make up the local sonidero scene. Mexico is probably the biggest home to the sonidero subculture of DJs. Notes from the crowd, in-person shout-out requests and text messages wishing love to girlfriends/boyfriends, even checking certain family names—gangs sometimes—makes this cumbia-playing soundman a kind of town crier for these transnational neighborhoods.

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Omar Corona is a cook at Metate, a Mexican restaurant in Riverdale

by Mehroz Baig

Omar Corona, 28, works as a cook at the newly opened Metate, a Mexican restaurant in Riverdale. Originally from Mexico City, he moved to the United States when he was 15 years old and he’s been a Bronxite for the last six years. For Corona, keeping Mexican traditions alive is important, and one of the ways he marks his Mexican roots comes in the form of preparing Mexican dishes , especially his favorites,  fajitas with pipian verde, a green sauce served with a variety of meat.

“You have to put green tomatoes, cilantro, cebolla [onion], garlic and a chicken base,” says Corona.

His favorite Mexican food to eat also happens to be pipian verde, “because the taste is Mexican,” Corona added.

Corona remembers growing up in Mexico and celebrating Cinco de Mayo. “In Mexico, all the schools would close and we’d celebrate for like two to three days,” Corona said, adding that the Cinco de Mayo celebration in the U.S. is admittedly more subdued.

Corona also celebrates another traditional holiday, Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead. He says that during the October holiday, he creates an altar in his house with traditional offerings of milk and flowers.