Even though thousands of individuals will celebrate Cinco de Mayo May 5, many see the holiday as little more than a reason to drink beer and margaritas, believes Chicana/o studies Professor Luis Torres.

Actually, the holiday commemorates the victory of a small, poorly armed Mexican militia over a powerful French army at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, preventing the invasion of the country.

"The battle has come to represent for Chicanos victory in a seemingly hopeless struggle against overwhelming odds, and it has taught us that sometimes such a battle can be won," says Torres, who has taught the literature, history and culture of Chicanos and Chicanas at Metro since 1972.

Over-commercialization of the holiday obscures the greater meaning of Cinco de Mayo, Torres contends. "Not all corporate sponsorship is bad, but some companies only care about selling more beer."

One solution to the lack of understanding about Cinco de Mayo, and one in which Torres has been instrumental, is the broader use of the Alma de la Raza Curriculum and Teacher Training Project, a Denver Public Schools program in which K-12 instructional units on the history, contributions and issues pertinent to Latinos and Hispanics in the southwestern United States are added to the DPS curriculum. Each instructional unit is tied directly to the state and district standards and covers such areas as the history of indigenous peoples in the Americas, contacts of Spanish explorers in the New World, exploration of Mexico and areas of the present-day United States and colonization of New Mexico and southern Colorado.

Torres and the then-newly-formed Chicano Studies Department at Metro began working on the project in 1995 and the Alma project formally got under way in 1997. The project is going strong today, recently having received an award for excellence in multicultural curriculum development at the Mayor's Summit on Latino Academic Achievement.