¿Hablas Español? A Brief History of Spanish Speakers in the USA

“Why are all the subway signs in NYC in English and Spanish? This is America.” My heart sinks a little every time a student asks me this question. “This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish.” said then-Presidential-candidate Donald Trump, in a CNN debate in 2015. 

It may surprise some people to know that the official language of America, actually, is not English. America has no official language. Now you might be thinking, “but most people speak English.” Well, you could be right, or wrong - depending on what neighborhood you’re in. 

In New York City, the English-speaking majority margin is rapidly closing. According to recent data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, only 51% of New Yorkers speak only English at home, and Spanish is the most common language in several neighborhoods in the Bronx, Brooklyn, northern Manhattan and Queens.

America, as we know it, was founded by people from all over the world, who spoke (and speak) a multitude of languages. Spanish colonizers were here before English or Dutch, first settling in Florida in 1565. The US is full of cities and states with Spanish names; Florida is just one, as well as California, Los Angeles, Nevada and Montana. There are words we use everyday considered whole-heartedly “American” which are actually Spanish; rodeo (rodear), buckaroo (vaquero), ranch (rancho), jerky (charqui), bodega (bodega), cargo (cargo), cafeteria (cafetería), chill (chile), and macho (macho), to name just a few. 

Since 2015, the U.S. has officially had the 2nd largest Spanish speaking population in the world. Far more than Spain, and second only to Mexico. There are currently, approximately 41 million native Spanish speakers in the US. Of the 5 million English language learner (ELL) students in mainstream education here, roughly 3.8 million of them are Spanish speakers. So why is there still such a stigma around Spanish speakers in the US?

East Los Angeles high school students protest the conditions in their schools, March 15-29, 1968. (Stanford University Libraries)

Spanish speakers fought for their rights in America. Thanks to Latino protests during the Civil Rights Movement, the Equal Educational Opportunity Act of 1974 required public schools to ensure that ELL students (of all languages) have “equal access to education.” Students could not be denied access to education because of a lack of proficiency in English. 

But schools are not supervised on how they provide that equal access. Many adopt different approaches, with varying degrees of success and funding, from bilingual classrooms to pull-out ESL (English as a Second Language) sessions, to simply throwing ELL students into mainstream classes and hoping for the best. Because of this, in 2020, ELL students are still the lowest performing across all high school demographics. 

Some schools are setting fantastic examples; teaching in one language in the morning, and English in the afternoon, running fantastic ESL and language acquisition programs that benefit both English speaking and ELL students. We should be working to improve and build on this - starting with Spanish. 

It’s well known that learning new languages helps young (and old) people in lots of different ways, from increasing cognitive ability, memory, attention span and decision making skills, to literally growing your brain. We are lucky to have access to so many different languages, right outside our front doors, and with Spanish so prevalent, why are we not taking advantage of that, rather than seeing it as a problem?

Why are all the subway signs in NYC in English and Spanish? Because this is America - the original polyglot - a country where we speak English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Arabic and more, and we should be proud of that.