>>>I'm curious who's country celebrates May 9 as a national holiday and the World War II Victory day?
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>>Nobody I know around here. We should, but then it would be May 8 V/E Day. Victory Day (May 9) would be for Russians as the Germans surrendered to the Russian Army a day later. But on this side of the pond I would say that a huge percentage of the population has no clue of what we are talking about. Sad. (But we do celebrate a non-entity as Cinco de Mayo. Go figure).
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>Cinco de Mayo is not a non-entity to anyone of Mexican descent I know. It may be a relatively frivolous holiday, sort of like Hannukah, but it's noted. Last Friday I went up for lunch in Round Lake Beach, which is heavily Hispanic, and it was like the Rose Bowl parade. Radios blaring, everyone happy. And that was at noon.

I work with several Mexican citizens here as we have a multinational office. We also have an office in Mexico City, which was not closed for the holiday as the country was not closed (was not a Bank holiday). My point is why are we talking of celebrations in one community or other (sure there are Polish celebrations in Chicago on certain days, as there are Cuban or Colombian national day celebrations in Miami). The issue is that it is not a US celebration where the US people at large have a reason, as we do for V/E day, which went mostly unnoticed.

OK. It's an excuse to skip work and school and to party and drink beer. That's good enough. But we should be more knowledgeable of this countries achievements and do som,ethiong special for V/E day, V/J day and veteran's day. Not only for veterans but the population at large. I can guarantee, as I said before, that kids in school nowadays anywhere in the USA know more about Cinco de Mayo than V/E day (which was this week).