I just found a really interesting article recounting the experiences of two BBC correspondents who spent two weeks traveling the length of the USA speaking only Spanish. The aim of the project was to see what kind of experiences, stories and adventures they would encounter and to get a sense of just how prominent Spanish is in this country, even with all this talk of “English Only.”
To my delight they found Spanish speakers all along, although of course some were more fluent than others. Among the statistics they provide, 15% of people who label themselves “Hispanic” are monolingual English speakers; 25% of are monolingual Spanish speakers; the remaining, and largest portion were bilingual.
Still stereotypes abound. Along their journey they found a man with distinctly Latino name, who spoke no Spanish, and another who after 6 generations in this country, and a college degree is still ostracized and assumed to be an uneducated immigrant.
Just to put things in perspective for all those crying “English Only”; Spanish is the second most common language in the USA after English. The USA has the 5th largest Spanish speaking population in the world; Spanish is the most common language taken in schools as a second language; and besides, this country doesn’t have an official language.
I say whether Spanish is spoken by immigrants or those born and raised here, it benefits us all to know more than one language, and clearly we are going to need it as the Spanish speaking population continues to grow here, and this world continues to come closer together.
You can read the BBC article here, and take a look at the reporter’s blog here. You can also learn more about Spanish in the USA here.
Ian
I don’t know much about this, but I’ve heard that Toronto public schools have working programs for allowing immigrants to maintain their family’s original language. Much of this has to do with Canada being a commonwealth nation and also having two official languages. Do you know much about Toronto?
Carlo
“besides, this country doesn’t have an official language.”
Exactly, I constantly point this out to the Minuteman fools who try to push for English-only, who are associated with that disgusting organization US English, which was founded by some guy– Jim Tanton or something– who is a white supremacist.
There are many reasons that the USA has no official language, but a major one is that many other languages have official protection for all public uses throughout much of the country. One of these is Spanish, of course– following the Mexican War and the wars over Florida, there were accords and also primary laws that officially recognize and demand the official use of Spanish in offices, schools, libraries, hospitals, public works facilities and elsewhere. (And this doesn’t even include Puerto Rico.)
Note therefore, that Spanish has equality with English in 3 of our largest states– California, Texas and Florida– as well as the rest of the SW. Hawaiian has such protection in Hawaii, while Aleut languages have it in Alaska, Cherokee in e.g. Okla. and NC, even German in Pennsylvania and segments of Wisconsin.
IOW, the USA is a multilingual nation and already has been. And esp. in the SW, Spanish is a language that must be learned.
In fact, I’ve been reading a lot about Latinos increasingly deciding to home-school, in part since they can teach at least a large portion of courses to their children using Spanish as the means of instruction, and frankly because the public schools are so awful with the tax cuts from whites who don’t want to subsidize the schools. (Some multi-imersion schools also use part-Spanish instruction, and are good– if we were using the public or private schools, that’s the only one I’d send my kids to.) I’m all for it– I certainly wouldn’t send my kids to public schools, the crime- and junk-food infested messes that they are.
(Y no es una mentira o exageracion– las escuelas publicas en EEUU ahorita estan verdaderamente peligrosas!)
I have 4 kids (good old-fashioned Puerto Rican family), we’re in Texas, and my wife and I have decided to home-school all of them, a big portion in Spanish. They have very high-quality professional textbooks en espanol from e.g. Chile, Mexico and Uruguay, and it’s fairly easy also to get Spanish-language teaching materials from the Spanish-English schools here.