History of Hispanic Americans

Not all persons of Spanish, Mexican, Cuban, Argentinian, etc. descent insist on speaking Spanish. You can't just paint everyone with a broad brush like that.

My apartment mate in Law School was a guy whose parents had come over to the US from Spain. He spoke Spanish on the phone to his folks but, when visiting, they spoke English just fine. E. g. they were fully fluent in both languages, and spoke each as it suited them, they wanted to, etc.

There are plenty of Hispanic Americans who are famous. How about someone from sports, like David Ortiz? Or the performing arts, like Salma Hayek?

Because it's their language. Why shouldn't they?

When they spoke Yiddish with that accent they weren't being understood by the alta kachers!

Juan Seguin

thank you!
I am just curios and admire them. Compare with the other immigrants, they insist on speaking native language, even after several generations. I have heard that there are so many hispanics in NY city that the service call replies"english press 1, spainish press 2".Is that true?

Cesar Chavez

That;s true not only in NYC but a lot of other major cities where there's a sizeable Spanish-speaking minority. In the subway systems ofBoston and NYC (and, I believe, Chicago akso) all the signs are in both languages. In many cities, when you use an ATM, the first question, ever before you enter your PIN, will be whether you wish to communicate in English or Spanish.

Now, there's something you have to remember when studying the Hispanic-Americans. Not all of them are "immigrants". There's quite a large number whose families have been living here longer than some of the European-decended people. When we had a war with Mexico in 1846-1848, we acquired a very, very large chunk of real estate which already had quite a few Spanish-speaking people living there. They weren't about to move or to change their ways or linguistic cultutre just because Yankees were now calling the shots. The states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado (did I leave any out?) were all part of Mexico at one time.

Then, of course, after the Spanish-American War in 1898, we acquired Puerto Rico as a US Territory. We have no right to force Puerto Ricans, who are American citizens, to learn English. They didn't ask to be Americans. It just happened.