Spanish as the Second National Language of the United States

Abstract

Bestow great attention on Spanish and endeavor to acquire an accurate knowledge of it. Our future connections with Spain and Spanish America will render that language of valuable acquisition. The ancient history of that part of America, too, is written in that language. I am sending you a dictionary.

—Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, in 1787.

Introduction

The status of a language is very often described and measured by different factors, including the length of time it has been in use in a particular territory, the official recognition it has been given by governmental units, and the number and proportion of speakers. Spanish has a unique history and, so some argue status, in the contemporary United States based on these and other criteria. At least eight arguments have been identified that would promote this unique status:

Spanish was spoken in North “America” as a colonial language over 100 years before the establishment of the first permanent English-speaking colonies at Jamestown and Plymouth.

Two thirds of what is now the United States was at one time under an official Spanish language polity.

The principal mode of initial incorporation of large numbers of Spanish speakers to the nation was through war, including peace treaties providing various civil rights, guaranteeing liberties, and the granting of citizenship en masse to those conquered populations.

In the past and present, the United States has recognized the official status of the Spanish language at the federal, state, and local levels of government, including outlying polities within the jurisdiction of the nation, either as a recognition of the prior sovereign in those territories (Spain, Mexico) or as a recognition of large numbers of Spanish speakers.

The number of people who can speak Spanish, either monolingually or bilingually, has steadily increased in the United States, and in North America, since the founding of the United States.

The futures of Spanish in the United States are for continued growth, trailing the numerical and proportional growth of Chican@s, Puerto Ricans, and other Latin@s in the country.

Spanish is the most popular “foreign” (as in non-English) language taught in the schools and colleges of the United States.

Spanish is a world language, widely spoken throughout the globe, and the official language of more than 22 countries and international organizations and the United States is one of the largest Spanish-speaking countries in the world.

Some authors argue that this is a history and status unlike other indigenous, colonial, or immigrant languages and that these points argue for an exceptionalism for Spanish in the United States, even to the extent of recognizing and accepting it as a second national language. For example, Alonso (2006), in promoting six institutional responses of college Spanish departments to the increased and increasing enrollments in Spanish classes, indicated that “only then will Spanish be ready to assume the role demanded [italics added] of it by historical circumstance [italics added] as the second national language of the United States” (p. 20). It is important to recognize the additive nature of this call for recognizing and accepting Spanish as a second national language, not as a substitute for English—a point that I address below. Yet Spanish and its status, its use in schooling, and its use in other educational and public situs have often been a contentious public policy issue, especially when reflecting intergroup social relations between Anglos (most often White Euro-Americans but occasionally African-descended Anglophones) and Chican@s and other Latin@s (see Crawford, 1993; Huntington, 2004). Where there was a community or polity with a monolingual, English-speaking majority or dominance, the public policy issue of recognizing or using Spanish was often framed by local policy makers as anti-“American” (meaning United States), foreign, and in and of itself self-defeating for those who spoke the language (Leibowitz, 1971, 1976). These controversies provided for episodic periods during which the language issues (e.g., the language of instruction in the schools) was the basis for the politics of social control of the Spanish-speaking peoples on the one hand and self-determination by and for the Spanish-speaking peoples on the other. So other than as a descriptor of the number of Spanish speakers in the country, what does it mean to identify or ascribe the status to Spanish as a second national language?

Part of the “American lore” or ideology regarding language diversity in civil society is that this diversity comes primarily, if not exclusively, from immigrants. Kloss (1971) addressed this connection and how it was reflected in public policies, and the basis of those policies, by identifying four “theories”: tacit compact theory, take and give theory, antighettoization theory, and national unity theory. The first two theories reflect the belief that immigrants gain something coming to the United States and, therefore, must give up their language, culture, and any claims or rights to them in return. The second two theories associate the continuation of immigrant languages with social, political, and economic isolation, and the lack of progress of the immigrant, and as a disruptive force to the national unity. However, as we see below, the history of Spanish does not fit neatly into these theories identified by Kloss (1971). These theories much better reflect what we have come to identify as ideologies of language (see Leeman, 2004; Wiley & Lukes, 1996). The dominant and popular U.S. view reflected here is that the principal, if not exclusive, source of the linguistic diversity within the nation is immigration and can be influenced or controlled primarily through immigration laws; secondarily, through naturalization and citizenship policies conditioned on demonstrated English language abilities; and third, through required “Americanization” in the schools (the forced English-only and cultural socialization under the guise of civic and government education, and “instillation” of patriotism; see Leibowitz, 1984).

The history and political economy of the various groups and languages as socioeconomic context are important for exploring language status, rights, and their manifestation in educational policies (Macías, 2000a; Wiley, 1999, 2006). Several of these above-stated arguments demand that territorial expansion, economic development, immigration and population growth, and political consolidation within a country are a more substantive frame of reference for analyses of the question of the exceptionality of Spanish in the United States. This study, then, explored whether the claims that Spanish indeed has a unique status within what is now the United States are warranted. It explored the aforementioned arguments for Spanish language exceptionalism, and the “fit” with some of these various “theories” or paradigms underlying language status and educational policies, more generally, to explore its status as the second national language in the United States.

Is Spanish Different or Exceptional From Other Languages in the United States?

Each of the eight arguments identified here has been proposed by others as a rationale for the recognition of Spanish in some official status, either singly, or in various combinations. The exposition below is limited to an initial exploration of the first five, with a brief annotation of the future of Spanish to the discussion of its growth in the United States. There is no attention to the last three arguments, some of which are partly addressed elsewhere in this volume.

Spanish Was Spoken in North “America” Over 100 Years Before the Establishment of the First Permanent English-Speaking Colonies at Jamestown and Plymouth

It is fairly common knowledge that Spain chartered Genoan Christopher Columbus in 1492, to sail West to establish trade relations with Asia and India and that he encountered “new” lands and peoples in the Caribbean and mainlands of what has become known as the Western hemisphere of the globe. It is useful, especially for our purposes, to explore how Spanish gets learned, spoken, and spread throughout these “new” lands; the colonial ownership claims to these new “discoveries”; and how this relates to what is now the United States.

In 1959, the noted anthropologist Eric Wolf described this initial encounter with this background related to the “Spanish” language:

In 1519, Middle America witnessed the coming of the Spaniards, who brought with them to the New World their Romance language, historically the linguistic legacy of Roman rule in Spain. The Roman Empire yielded to pressures from within and without, but the population of the Peninsula continued to speak in Iberian Latin dialects in the face of conquest and occupation by Vandal, Goth, and Arab. When the Christian principalities of the Spanish north rallied to drive out the Arab invaders again, one of the north Spanish dialects, Castilian, spoken in the narrow confines of the kingdom of Oviedo in the Cantabrian Mountains, became the idiom of the Reconquest. As the Reconquest led to the political consolidation and hegemony of the kingdom of Castile, this dialect of the northern marches became the language of the new Spanish state. The year 1492 marked the victory of the Spanish armies over the Arabs in Spain and the expansion of Castile overseas, into the New World beyond the Atlantic. But 1492 also marked the appearance of the first Castilian grammar, the Gramática de la lengua castellana, by Antonio de Nebrija (1444-1532), written with the express purpose of acquainting future subject populations speaking other languages with the new language of command. (p. 43)

Recognizing this new land mass and its various peoples as previously unknown to the Europeans, and certainly not Christian, Christopher Columbus, and the Spaniards with him, claimed the new areas for the Royals of Spain under the Doctrine of Discovery. The Doctrine established the right of Christian kings to claim for God and country undiscovered lands, that is, lands that were not already claimed by other Christian monarchs and in which the population was not already Christian for purpose of expansion and Christianization, under penalty of slavery, torture, or death. This policy was set out in three papal bulls issued in 1452 (Papal Bull Dum Diversas) and 1455 (Bull Romanus Pontifex), both by Pope Nicholas V, and in 1493 (Bull Inter Caetera) by Pope Alexander VI, extending the reasoning used earlier to justify the Crusades in the “Holy Lands” in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. This Doctrine became the foundation of what is known today as the Law of Nations (or modern international law), because it set the rules by which different Christian monarchs could competitively claim these lands.

France, England, the Netherlands, and other European monarchies soon followed Spain and Portugal in seeking to “discover” new lands, peoples, and resources, to conquer and exploit, albeit by respecting the prior claims of the peninsular powers. Thus, began the period Western historians have named the Age of Discovery, or the Colonial Period (because these “discovered” lands became colonies of these European royals, establishing empires beyond kingdoms).

The found territories were well populated throughout the continents. In meso-America alone, “Estimates put the indigenous Mexican population at approximately 25.3 million in 1519, 16.8 million in 1523, 2.6 million in 1548, 1.3 million in 1595, and 1 million in 1605” (Terborg, García Landa, & Moore. 2007, p. 119). Some authors claim that this decline led to the extinction of more than 100 languages. The population recovery was accompanied by considerable mixing of peoples of various ethnic backgrounds, although Indians always comprised the majority of the population of New Spain, or colonial Mexico; people solely African or European constituted a very small subpopulation. By the end of the 16th century, Spanish speakers were primarily the Spanish elite colonials and their American-born progeny (criollos).

The second largest group was of mixed European and Indian stock raised in a Spanish environment (euromestizos); mixed stock of Indians and Europeans raised in an indigenous environment (indomestizos); and Spanish-speaking mixed groups with an African component (afromestizos) who also made up a considerable fraction of the population. (Hidalgo, 2006, p. 5)

Wolf (1959) contended, “If the Amerinds had maintained their pre-conquest level of population, 300,000 Spaniards and 250,000 African Negroes could probably not have affected the Amerind gene pool appreciably” (p. 30). By the end of the 18th century, he guestimated,

On the basis of the returns for the Spanish census of 1793, . . . Indians and Indo-mestizos (mestizos in whose outward appearance Indian physical characteristics dominate) made up 70 percent of the Middle American population. Afro-mestizos (or mestizos in whom Negroid characteristics were dominant) accounted for 10 percent. Whites and Euro-mestizos (mestizos in whom European physical characteristics were dominant) accounted for 20 percent. (pp. 31–32)

The racial and language policies adopted by Spain were significant in establishing a hierarchy of languages and in eventually supporting the acquisition and spread of Spanish by the local colonized population. The language of administration was Castellano throughout the colonial period. The language diversity among the indigenous population was addressed in various ways by Royal decisions in the first 100 years of colonial administration: supporting the languages of the various indigenous groups; selecting Nahuatl as the “language of the Indians,” with the encouragement of the Crown, resulting in the publication of 80 books in Nahuatl by 1600; and promoting the teaching and learning of Latin through schooling and religious education (see Gray, 1999; Gray & Fiering, 2000; Heath, 1972). These colonial policies of Spain were applied even as the indigenous populations were being diminished and the indigenous societies were being colonially restructured. When New Spain became independent Mexico (and many other new, decolonized, polities in Central America), in 1821, the new governments received Spanish as their political-linguistic legacy. After independence, Mexico adopted literacy and language policies that promoted a single nationalism through Castellanization, especially through the establishment of schools, although ideologically doting on the diverse indigenous roots of the native population.

The beginning of the Age of Discovery attracted many of the European monarchs. The King of England, Henry VII, in 1496, authorized the Venetian John Cabot to investigate, claim, and possess lands. Under the Discovery Doctrine, Cabot was obliged to avoid lands already claimed by the Christian monarchs of Spain and Portugal. England explored and sought such lands and was principally restricted to the northern areas of the Western hemisphere. Permanent settlements, that is, occupation, were not successful in what became the United States, until 1607 at Jamestown. The English approach to colonization through discovery was more mercantilistic, commercially organized, and settler based than that of the Spanish. Settler populations established colonies and towns with the intent to develop commerce between England and the new areas of occupation. Settler contacts with the indigenous populations of the northeastern coastal part of the continent were less about discovery claims to large swaths of territory for the King, or colonial control of the indigenous populations, and more about a practice of “measured distance,” establishing clear areas of settler occupation and movement, with reestablishment (removal) of the local AmerIndian populations to other areas further West, through agreement, force, or happenstance (Lepore, 1998).

The practice of measured distance was also the basis for “tolerance” of religious and other differences. Religious refugees were often Reformed Christians considered cults and heretics by the new Church of England, and thus persecuted in the metropole. As they settled in New England, they established their separate towns and churches where they could practice their religions without interference from other varieties of Christians, and without the contact of the indigenous non-Christians, nonbelievers. An exception to this measured distance practice was the enslaved African population that arrived in the English colonies very soon after they were permanently settled. Regarding this population there was a “socially” measured distance through a repression of their indigenous African languages, an imposition of limited oral English (to understand commands and facilitate control), and a prohibition of teaching reading, writing, and general schooling, although they were in close physical contact with English colonists.

There was no specific language policy for the English colonies formulated by England during the colonial period. Heath (1976) characterized the language attitude of England toward the colonies as one of deferral, so long as the language policies of the colonial-settlers did not conflict with any of the nonlanguage policies of the Crown. According to Heath, language choice and style was a matter of individual choice in England, something not to be legislated by the state. These attitudes toward language use were paralleled in the colonies. Locally, occasional attempts were made, primarily by religious groups, to change the language and culture of the Indians. These schools, according to Heath, were short-lived because of the lack of institutional support and the lack of centralized broad policy formulation on the part of the English. As Heath sums up, “They failed to intermarry with the Indians or provide social structures which would promote culture and language shifts outside formal policy decisions” (p. 81).

Competition between the northern European powers over their “discoveries,” and wars between the European colonial monarchies, left England the winner of the prior claims made by Sweden, Holland, and France. In the Treaty of Paris of 1763, between France and England, which concluded the French and Indian Wars, or what is also known as the Seven Years War, France ceded its discovery claim to Canada, Quebec, and the claims east of the Mississippi river to the Appalachian mountain range to England. France’s claims west and southwest of the Mississippi river were granted to Spain. The colonial dominion of the “new world” changed between the colonial powers until the period of colonial independence (decolonization) began with the rebellion of the northern mid-Atlantic British colonies (1776). This was followed by those in the rest of the continent and the Caribbean against Spain and France in the first quarter of the 19th century (most dated to 1821). The independence movements established the modern nation-state of constitutional republics throughout the continent with the mirror of self-government, initiating a new period of political relationships between the peoples of the Western hemisphere. The legacy of colonial competition over lands and resources was visited on the behaviors between these new nation-states. The colonial languages of these areas continued as the language of government and administration of the new states, with little recognition of the continued linguistic diversity contributed by indigenous groups. Spanish became the dominant language in nearly two dozen countries, English, French, Dutch, and Portuguese in less than six each in the Western hemisphere.

Broadly, Spain and Britain were the last two “standing” colonial empires in the Western hemisphere in the middle of the 1700s (Portugal holding its own with its Southern Cone colony of Brazil). With different approaches to the development and administration of their colonies and empire building, they remained political siblings under the color of authority of the Doctrine of Discovery, when it came to the lands and the indigenous diversity.

There were at least three types of colonialism in the world: (a) a small colonizer elite with a large indigenous, colonized population; (b) a settler colonization, where settler-colonizers geographically and demographically displaced the indigenous populations (an English pattern of colonialism in the North American context); and (c) a small colonizer elite, with large colonized native populations characterized by a racial mixture between colonizer and colonized and an incomplete cultural imposition from the colonizer to the colonized (a Spanish pattern in much of the Western hemisphere). Although Spanish became a colonial language in this period, the predominant speakers of the language in the colonies became the detribalized mestizos with a majority demographic basis in the indigenous peoples of the hemisphere. The notion here of an incomplete cultural imposition, then, is based primarily on the spread of language (Castellano) and adoption of religion (Catholic Christian) and not on the daily life, diet, or other popular practices of the majority colonized population, which tended to continue local, indigenous life, beliefs, and practices. Keep in mind the Indianization of the Spanish language (Parodi, 2006) and the adaptation to the local indigeneity of the Catholic Church and Christian religion.

The Spanish language spread over the colonies in New Spain, New Granada, and its other overseas possessions to the extent that on independence from Spanish colonialism (1810–1821) in much of middle America, the overwhelming majority of the political and social elites were Spanish speaking and Spanish became the official language of the new republics. At the beginning of the 21st century, Spanish was the first language for 90% of the Mexican population and a lingua franca for many of the indigenous language speakers (Terborg et al., 2007). In 2010, Mexico was also the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world with over 100 million Spanish speakers (Hidalgo, 2006).

What are the Important Points to Note From This Brief Review?

How does this rationalize Spanish as a second national language in the United States today? Its basic premise is that Spanish was “here” first, and that ought to count for something. Appeals to historicity are common in status discussions.

Second, although the English language was the legacy of the British empire in what became the United States, we should note that it exercised a very permissive, if not tolerant, approach to official language policies, leaving such decisions to local jurisdictions and civil society. Some might stretch these notions to be included in the liberties and freedoms espoused in the Enlightenment and that undergirded the principles of revolution and government in the Declaration of Independence.

A third point to be made from this brief review is that Spanish is spoken in the Western hemisphere in the majority by detribalized indigenous populations. The rights of indigenous peoples, of colonized populations, are implicated here. Although Spanish is classified as a colonial language, the majority of its speakers are not colonial-settlers, immigrants, or strictly their progeny, as is the case with English speakers in the United States.

Two Thirds of What Is Now the United States Was at One Time Under an Official Spanish Language Polity

After gaining independence from Britain, one of the first issues the newly independent United States needed to determine was territorial integrity. Under the Treaty of Paris (1783) between the Continental Congress and England, which ended the war for independence, the former British colonies were recognized as individually separated from England and independent states incorporating not only their colonial jurisdictional territories but also an emancipation of the British colonial territory west of the Appalachian mountains to the Mississippi river, but not to the north into Canada. The territory between the Mississippi and the Appalachians was reserved for their Indian occupants (as defined in the Royal Proclamation of 1763). The British claims in the south (west Florida) were ceded back to Spain not the United States (Spain also continued to claim former British territory as far north as the Ohio and Tennessee rivers from 1783 until 1820; Cox, 1976). The newly independent states even left open the possibility of gaining more British colonial territory, Canada, as a new state, if it so desired (Article XI, Articles of Confederation; see Spaeth & Smith, 1991).

Controversy continued as to conflicting claims to boundaries between states, to the nature of “clear title” to these territories with regard to the AmerIndian occupation of these lands and the legal nature of their landownership. The new nation generally recognized other “first discovery” claims of colonial control and ownership, primarily of Spain to the west, and to the south, and federal control and ownership of national territory not otherwise part of a sovereign member-state.

Constitution of the United States of America (effective March 4, 1789)

Article IV, Section 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more states, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as Congress;

The Congress shall have the Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States or of any particular State.

Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion. (Spaeth & Smith, 1991, p. 207)

Much of the early work of the new nation was spent on adjudicating the conflicting claims of jurisdictional boundaries between member-states. All of the land in the jurisdiction of the new republic that was not part of a sovereign member-state was under the control and authorization of the federal government. Lands occupied by indigenous peoples were defined as part of the United States, with recognition of a prior and continuing occupancy of the land by the indigenous population, with a federal government right of first option to buy. Sale of Indian lands to private hands was soon prohibited (see Johnson v. McIntosh, 1823, on U.S. ownership of Indian lands within its jurisdiction, claimed by the prior colonial sovereign, based on a recognition of the Doctrine of Discovery; and identification of the Indian nations as “domestic dependent nations”). The new republic adopted the “measured distance” policy of relations with Indians and the use of treaties between the domestic dependent nations and the federal government, as a way of official engagements and interactions.

Territorial expansion of the United States is another critical dimension in providing an adequate socioeconomic-historical context for examining the status of Spanish in the United States. Nineteenth-century U.S. territorial expansion included over 2 million square miles of land that was previously under either Spain, Mexico, or some form of government that included Spanish as an official language and, thus, part of the Spanish language heritage of the United States. This territorial expansion included the following: (a) the 1 million square miles of the Louisiana Purchase (initially explored by the Spanish, under French colonial administration between 1699 and 1763, and then again under Spanish rule between 1763 and 1803); (b) the 38,700 square miles of territory east of the Mississippi (east and west Florida) that Spain ceded to the United States, along with its rights to Oregon, in 1819; (c) the nearly 1 million square miles of land taken in the U.S.–Mexican war (1846–1848); (d) the Gadsen Purchase of 45,000 square miles in 1853; and (e) the occupation of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines in 1898, as the result of the U.S. intervention into what is called the Spanish–American war. In the 45 years between 1803 and 1848, the United States expanded across the continent, acquiring 2.3 million square miles, two thirds of its present land area, most of which was under an official Spanish language sovereign, with processes of territorial administration and political conversion to statehood in place.

How Does This Argument Inform Us Regarding the Status of Spanish?

The principal understanding of this argument is that the United States has a colonial heritage beyond the British and that this should be recognized. Nearly two thirds of the country was previously under Spanish colonial rule, and more than half did not include any prior English claims. So, if we are to recognize the language legacy of the British in the new United States, we should likewise recognize the language legacy of the Spanish in the additional territory acquired postindependence. Note that the Spanish had explicit policies regarding the language diversity of indigenous populations and the adoption of Spanish as the official language of the independent republics realized in decolonization from Spain. England did not. The argument raises issues of the history of the language and its speakers in an area (historicity; geo-linguistic demography), the nature of the language contact, and the integration of disparate language communities into a new, common polity.

The Principal Mode of Initial Incorporation of Large Numbers of Spanish Speakers to the Nation Was Through War, Concluding With Peace Treaties Providing Various Civil Rights and the Granting of Citizenship En Masse to Those Conquered Populations

The initial incorporation of Mexicans, Filipinos, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and other Spanish speakers in significant numbers was through war, conquest, and territorial expansion in the 19th century. Their postincorporation treatment as vanquished peoples greatly affected the official policies and popular attitudes toward them and the Spanish language. The Spanish-speaking and other indigenous populations were incorporated into the U.S. social system at different times and in different ways. American Indian nations were absorbed, militarily conquered, relocated, or otherwise “terminated.”

The war with Mexico ended in 1848, and the ceded lands were occupied by an estimated 100,000 Mexicans and a similar number of indigenas, with a network of towns, commercial centers, and transportation routes (Martínez, 1975). The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo recognized this demography and to some extent this political economy.

Some have argued that the Treaty also guaranteed language rights to the conquered resident population of Mexicans. Language rights in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, however, were not explicitly mentioned. The understanding of the protection of cultural and language rights apparently was based on that in the 1803 Treaty for the purchase of the Louisiana Territory between France and the United States (Klotz, 1968), for which there was an understanding of such protection. France raised the question of protecting its Catholic, French-speaking population from the Protestant, English-speaking United States. Language, culture, and religion were much intertwined in expression and practice. It is maintained that the “liberties” referred to in the 1803 Treaty reflected the French cultural and language rights and, along with properties and religion of the persons remaining in the sold territory, were to be respected (Klotz, 1968). The subsequent concessions by the U.S. government on language in the Louisiana territory, like language competencies required for elected officials, or the translation of laws into both English and French, have been identified as expressions of the Treaty protections “in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess.”

According to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Mexicans that remained in the ceded territory “shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion without restriction.” The continuity of definitions between the Treaty of 1803 and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is of interest if “liberty” and “religion” were understood to include not only unfettered use of the (non-English) language but also public access and support for its use (Griswold del Castillo, 1990). The debates during the California Constitutional conventions imply that the use of interpreters and the publication of the Constitution and laws in English and Spanish were a recognition of the spirit of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (Lozano, 2011).

Attention to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was renewed and increased during the Chican@ movement of the 1960s and 1970s, owing to its legal protections of property rights of land grants in the ceded Mexican territories and as a basis for claimed cultural and language rights. Claims by the Hopi and other Pueblo natives regarding their prewar status as Mexican citizens and their subsequent civil and property rights in the United States under the Treaty have also brought new attention to the Treaty. A collaboration between Chican@s and other indigenous groups (through the International Indian Treaty Council) has also appealed and filed claims with international organizations, like the United Nations, on protections of their human rights and their right to self-determination (Griswold del Castillo, 1990). “Today the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gives Mexican Americans a special relationship to the majority society. As a conquered people, Mexicans within the United States have been given a special consideration under an international Treaty” (Griswold del Castillo, 1990, p. 173).

At the end of the 19th century, the United States intervened in the Cuban war of independence from Spain (the Spanish–American war) and in the process gained the former Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. Under the Teller Amendment (1898), the United States was forbidden to annex Cuba, but it acquired Puerto Rico and occupied the Philippine Islands in the south Pacific, until it gave the latter their qualified political independence as of July 4, 1946. The incorporation of Puerto Rico alone added over 950,000 Spanish speakers to the United States population, with limited U.S. citizenship granted en masse in 1917, through an act of Congress, known as the Jones Act (Álvarez-González, 1999; Castro, 1977). The United States still includes Puerto Rico and Guam within its jurisdiction, having changed its political relation with Puerto Rico from colony to commonwealth in 1952.

The common nature of incorporation into the United States of the Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, the two largest groups who speak Spanish, was war, then occupation. The political status of the areas postincorporation varied for Puerto Rico, which is outside the continental United States, and the territory ceded by Mexico, which was contiguous with the country prior to the war, and became the “Southwestern” part of the nation, and which has been divided into nearly a dozen states.

How Does the Review of This Argument Give Us a Better Understanding of Spanish as a National Language?

This argument outlines, in principle, that a legally binding agreement continues to officially recognize the language practices of a group, the state ought not interfere with those practices, and there should have been a promotive bilingual government administration of these lands as they were incorporated into U.S. jurisdiction. These populations were incorporated into the U.S. body politic involuntarily.

The United States Has Recognized the Official Status of the Spanish Language at the Federal, State, and Local Levels of Government, Including Outlying Polities Within the Jurisdiction of the Nation

What does it mean to officially recognize a language when there is no national, constitutional official language in the United States? It is important to understand the organization of government to put these language policy issues within the context of the area’s legal relationship to the governmental structure of the United States, for example, as a state, territory, federal district, commonwealth, or “domestic dependent nation.” The United States is also a complex set of centralized and decentralized political relations, with a separation of powers and a check and balance on the distribution of power, authority, and scope of activity. The federal government, as a whole, is also constrained as to its duties and actions by the Constitution, leaving all else as the responsibility and authority of the sovereign constituent states. Each of these jurisdictions has certain exclusive rights and responsibilities in establishing, promoting, and implementing policies.

With two thirds of the national jurisdiction having been under earlier Spanish rule, one can predict there are many states that were successfully created by Congress from these territories. If we look into the history of some of these states, we can get exemplars of official Spanish, keeping in mind there are other jurisdictions with similar histories and profiles, and even some with official languages other than Spanish.

California

California came under U.S. jurisdiction in 1848, as a result of the U.S.–Mexican War, as part of the land ceded by Mexico to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It became a state, without going through a Territorial phase, in 1850, as the 31st of the Union (Belz, 2001). In the California Constitutional Convention in 1849, the 8 Spanish-surnamed delegates and the immediate history of the area wielded much linguistic influence on the proceedings and the other 40 delegates (Lozano, 2011). Article XI, Miscellaneous Provisions, §21, of the California Constitution of 1849, provided, “All laws, decrees, regulations, and provisions, which from their nature require publication, shall be published in English and Spanish.” According to Fedynskyj (1971), this provision was made part of the California Constitution in the spirit of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, which assured Mexicans residing in all the occupied territory the protection of person and property guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the Republic.

To effect this official bilingualism, the first California legislature established the office of State Translator, provided for the printing of 1,050 copies in English and 350 copies in Spanish of all the laws of California passed at that session of the Legislature, and provided for distribution of the journals, laws, supreme court reports, and other documents. An act of April 29, 1852, Chap. 50, maintained,

The distribution of the laws in Spanish shall be made by the Secretary of State, as follows: one copy to each Justice of the Supreme Court, to each District Judge, to each County Clerk, to each Senator and member of the Assembly in the counties of Sonoma, Marin, Mendocino, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Los Angeles, and to each county judge in said counties. The residue shall remain in the State Library until otherwise disposed of by law. (Fedynskyj, 1971, pp. 472–473)

A joint legislative committee was appointed to designate the laws and resolutions to be translated and to decide on the qualifications of translators. Spanish editions of California session laws before 1863 were abridged editions of the original English volumes. The ratio between English and Spanish contents oscillated between 3:1 and 3:2. The last Spanish edition was published in 1878 for the 1877–1878 session (Fedynskyj, 1971).

Many legal notices were also published in Spanish and English by the state and local governments in newspapers throughout California. The extant robust Spanish language press was a principal vehicle for this bilingual publication. As the English language newspapers began to develop, they often included “Spanish pages” in order to qualify for the money for the Spanish language notices as well. It was apparently the margin of profit for a number of struggling English language printers and publishers as well, who printed the Spanish language sections to gain the public subsidies and not necessarily to inform the people (Gutiérrez, 1977). When the California government suspended this practice, the Spanish language press was dealt a strong economic blow, while the English language press dropped the Spanish pages. According to Ruiz (1972) the laws requiring the bilingual publication continued on the books until 1878.

At the time of statehood for California, 18% of all schooling in the state was private and Catholic (Ewing, 1918; Leibowitz, 1971). These schools were usually taught in Spanish, and, of course, consisted mostly of Mexican origin students (Sappiens, 1979). The Catholic schools were initially state supported. In 1852, the state prohibited religious schools from receiving state funds (Leibowitz, 1971). The State Bureau of Public Instruction, in 1855, stipulated that all schools must teach exclusively in English (Leibowitz, 1971). The Catholic Church initially led the fight opposing the imposition of English in California Schools, even by partially encouraging bilingual schooling, but soon after 1855, under the direction of the Baltimore Diocese, it was a primary proponent of assimilation (Leibowitz, 1971). In 1870, the California State legislature enacted a statute providing that all the schools in the state (religious and public) be taught in the English language (Leibowitz, 1971). This law superseded the State Bureau of Public Instruction’s similar regulation of 1855.

After gold was discovered in 1849, a large number of Anglo, European, Latin American, and Asian sojourner workers and immigrants flooded to the northern California mountains to look for their fortune, quickly displacing in numbers the indigenous populations (Pitt, 1966). Southern California remained “Mexican” in population well into the 1870s. The state laws, however, were made in the north and not always favorable to what was perceived as the Mexican south. The English-only agitation continued, culminating in the Constitution of 1879 provision that prohibited the use of any other language for the publication of laws. Laws authorizing the publication of Spanish editions of session laws were formally repealed in 1897 (Fedynskyj, 1971).

California remained a predominantly English-only state until the 1960s and 1970s, when a liberal revision of the laws created an opening of sorts. In 1967, Senate Bill 53 allowed the use of other languages beside English as media of instruction in California public schools. This bill overturned the 1872 law requiring English-only instruction and opened the way for the 1974 Chacón-Moscone Bilingual-Bicultural Education Act, which established transitional bilingual education programs to meet the needs of students who could not speak English (who happened to be overwhelmingly of Mexican origin). Also, the California Supreme Court determined that Spanish literacy could satisfy the literacy requirement for voting in California under an equal protection standard (Castro v. State of California, 1970). California also adopted the Bilingual Services Act in 1974, to guide the provision of bilingual state government workers to meet the needs of constituents who spoke a language other than English and were limited in their English (Valdés, 2006; Valdés, Fishman, Chávez, & Pérez, 2006). Although the execution of the law has been much criticized, it was used as a blueprint for President Clinton’s Executive Order 13166 (2000), which directed the federal government to seek the same goals by requiring departments and agencies to develop plans to serve limited English-proficient Americans. This liberalization of the language policies and recognition of Spanish was challenged in two policy areas in the 1980s and 1990s, when English became the symbolic official language of the state through popular initiative in 1986, and the California bilingual education law was similarly changed in 1998 to a “structured English immersion” program as the default treatment for public school students not proficient in English.

What Do We Take Away From This Truncated Summary of Official Recognitions of Spanish?

There is no question that Spanish has been an official language in the United States, and is such today. Not only California but also New Mexico, Colorado, Puerto Rico (see Álvarez-González, 1999; Language Policy Task Force, 1978), and other states and territories officially recognized languages other than English (Kloss, 1977), especially Spanish, for official purposes. It has been recognized at multiple levels of government as a recognition of the former sovereign in the area and as a recognition of substantial numbers of Spanish-speaking constituents in those jurisdictions.

Agreements with prior sovereigns of respecting, protecting, and even promoting the language of their former populations implicate the notion of involuntary “immigrants” but more specifically the creation of national minorities rather than immigrant minorities. These jurisdictions have used a territorial principle, and a proportionality principle, in executing these official Spanish policies, especially at the local level and the state level. Conflicts in legal authority by language have been worked out in various ways in different places. Additional costs for translations, interpretations, or administration in multiple languages have been rejected as not being sufficient for the state to prohibit Spanish language freedoms.

The consequences of these recognitions and uses of official Spanish include a better representative democracy between citizens and government. Neither civil society nor the state was harmed in recognizing official Spanish, whereas, often, State intervention prohibiting or restricting the use of non-English languages has caused harm, and maintained White privilege.

The Number of People Who Can Speak Spanish Has Steadily Increased in the United States and in North America, Since the Founding of the United States

The number of Spanish speakers has increased for over 150 years in the United States at a rate faster than the national population, the ethnic base of the Spanish- speaking population has become bilingual, and there is every indication the growth of Spanish speakers will continue into the near future.

Numbers and Distribution of Languages

The 118,000 Spanish speakers of 1850 represented about 0.5% of the total national population of about 23 million (see Table 1). In 2011, there were 34.7 million Spanish speakers in the country, representing 12.3% of the total national population of 308.7 million. Not only was there an increase in absolute numbers but a proportionate increase to the national population as well.

Table 1

Growth of the Spanish-Speaking Population in the United States, 1850–2011

				Total Spanish Speakers
Year	Total U.S. Population	Spanish Speakers on Mainland United States	Population of Puerto Rico	N	% (Of Total Population)
1850	23,191,876	118,000	—	118,000	0.5
1900	75,994,575	562,000	953,200	1,515,200	2.0
1960	178,464,236	3,336,000	2,349,500	5,685,500	3.2
2000	281,421,906	28,101,052	3,008,567	31,109,619	11.1
2011	308,745,538	34,745,940	3,323,245	38,069,185	12.3

Source. This table is a shortened version of Macías (2000b), Table 1, updated with data for 2011. Data for 2011 come from the American Community Survey estimates for that year.

One should take note, however, that these languages may be grossly undercounted in the earlier years (see Macías, 2000b) as a result of identifying only onetime contributions to the national linguistic diversity. Another reason for a severe undercount in other sources is that they often do not include the population of Puerto Rico in these estimates, post 1898. A third reason for this undercount is that the U.S. Census reports language data in the first half of the 20th century limited to foreign White and native White of foreign or mixed parentage on the mainland (also see Leeman, 2004). The noninclusion of island Puerto Ricans and the racial qualifications of the records seriously distorts the linguistic diversity of the late 19th century and early 20th century, at least when it comes to the Spanish language. Again, the focus on the “immigrant” population in the early 20th century tends to distort the size and language character of indigenous racial/linguistic groups. The limits of mother tongue questions for “Whites” in 1910 and 1920 distort the figures, especially as Mexicans were not so classified.

Comparatively, the growth rate of Spanish speakers was also greater than the total number of speakers of other non-English languages. Between 1980 and 2007, the percentage of Spanish speakers increased 211%, all non-English speakers (not including Spanish) increased 140%, whereas the total national population grew by only 34%. Spanish speakers constituted 62.3% of the non-English language speakers in the United States in 2007, an increase from 48% in 1980. On the flip side, the population speaking only English in the United States went from 89% in 1980 to 80% in 2007. Lieberson and Curry (1971) echoed a conclusion from Language Loyalty, the major study on language shift in the first half of the 20^th century (Fishman, 1966), that summarizes much of the history and exceptionality of Spanish language demography.

Compared with the situation in many nations, a staggering number of immigrants and their descendents in the United States have given up their ancestral languages and shifted to a new mother-tongue. Nearly two-thirds of the 35 million immigrants between 1840 and 1924 were native speakers of some other tongue. Except for such groups as the Spanish-speaking residents of the Southwest [italics added], the Pennsylvania Dutch, the French-speaking residents of New England, and the Creoles in the Louisiana Bayous, the shift to an English mother-tongue was both rapid and with relatively little inter-group conflict. (p. 125)

It is not possible to report on what has happened in the future, so confidently describing whether this past growth will continue into the future is a difficult task. Projections, trend analyses, and scenario building have all been used for strategic planning and extrapolating what may and what probably will happen in the future. In predicting the future of Spanish, the most often used technique has been statistical projections. These language projections, however, have often been piggybacked, or based on ethnicity. The 2012 Census Bureau projections of the national population tell us several things regarding the composition of our nation’s population and its possible future components through 2060 that are useful in projecting Spanish language futures. The numerical dominance of the White population will continue to decrease and may be less than half of the total school age population in a little more than one generation. Net immigration may continue with an 80% non-White contribution to the population growth. After 2020, within one generation, Latin@s may contribute more net growth to the U.S. population than all other groups combined. In effect, the United States is projected to become a more diverse nation.

According to the Census report, the White (not including Hispanic) population is projected to peak in 2024, at 199.6 million, up from 197.8 million in 2012. Unlike other race or ethnic groups, however, its population is projected to slowly decrease thereafter, falling by nearly 20.6 million from 2024 to 2060. Meanwhile, the Hispanic population would more than double, from 53.3 million in 2012 to 128.8 million in 2060. Consequently, by the end of the period, nearly one in three U.S. residents would be Hispanic, up from about one in six today. The United States is projected to become a majority-minority nation for the first time in 2043. Although the White (not including Hispanic) population will remain the largest single group, no group will make up a majority of the national population. This is a phenomenal prediction, even though it mirrors the minority status of Whites in the world population. That is, the U.S. national population will be more like the rest of the hemisphere, if not the rest of the world, than it has been in the dominant American imaginary. Minorities were 37% of the U.S. population in 2012 and are projected to comprise 57% of the population in 2060 (more than double, from 116.2 million to 241.3 million over the period).

If we assume a similar language distribution among Latin@s as in 2011 (74% spoke Spanish; see Table 2), then the number of Spanish speakers may be as large as 96 million in 2060, nearly tripling in size from 34.7 million in 2011.

Table 2

Self-Reported Bilingualism, Latin@s in the United States, 1975, 1992, 2000, 2011

Year	Group, Age (Data Source)	% English Monolingua1	% Bilingual	% Non-English Monolingual
1975	Spanish origin, 4 years + (Current Population Survey Supplement)	21.9	66.6	11.2
1992	Total Hispanic (National Adult Literacy Survey)	25.0	50.0	25.0
2000	Hispanic or Latin@, 5 years+ (Census)	21.4	54.5	23.6
2011	Hispanic or Latin@, 5 years+ (American Community Survey)	22.9	54.0	20.2

Source. See Estrada (1985), p. 385, Table 5; Greenberg, Macías, Rhodes, and Chan (2001) p. 31, Table 2.3; and U.S. Census Bureau, American Fact Finder website, Table PCT011 for the year 2000 data, and Table B16006 for the year 2011 data.

Bilingualization of the Population

Even with the growth of the Spanish-speaking population in the United States, there are studies concluding that Chican@s, Puerto Ricans, and other Latin@s are shifting to English at an even greater rate than earlier European immigrants. These studies question the vitality of the Spanish language in the United States and its sustainability into the future without the contributions of new Spanish-speaking immigrants (see Porcel, 2011, for a discussion of the complexity of factors influencing language maintenance and shift). For our purpose in exploring this argument, the predictability of these studies is not controlling. That is, that even with the growth of Latin@ English speakers (monolinguals and bilinguals), the number of Spanish speakers continues to grow. The growth in numbers of the Spanish-speaking population has been appreciable in absolute terms and comparative terms, and it has spread to more areas of the country than the prior Mexican or Spanish colonial territories.

In the recent current language data sets, however, we can construct a category of bilinguals and of English and Spanish monolinguals, among Latin@s (see Tables 2 and 3), to explore this reality of acquiring and even shifting to English. The data cover a short period of time—between 1975 and 2011—but reflect a rather striking similarity across this time period, with a bit more than half the Latin@ population as bilinguals and 20% to 25% each as monolingual English or (presumably) Spanish.

Table 3

Self-Reported Oral Fluency and Literacy by Hispanic Subgroup, 1992

	English				Non-English
Group	% Monolingua1	% Monoliterate	% Bilingual	% Biliterate	% Monolingual	% Monoliterate	% Nonliterate
Total Hispanic	25.0	33.0	50.0	35.0	25.0	27.0	6.0
Mexican origin	25.0	34.0	48.0	30.0	27.0	29.0	7.0
Puerto Rican	20.0	27.0	66.0	51.0	13.0	16.0	6.0
Cuban	3.0	9.0	55.0	45.0	41.0	42.0	4.0
Central/South American	11.0	14.0	52.0	42.0	37.0	38.0	6.0
Hispanic Other	49.0	58.0	38.0	28.0	13.0	13.0	1.0

Source. Greenberg, Macías, Rhodes, and Chan (2001), Table 2.3, p. 31, and Table 2.4, p. 32.

There does not seem to be much variation in the bilingualization of the individual national origin groups. Cubans retain a high degree of Spanish monolingualism, whereas Other Hispanics reflects the opposite—a low Spanish monolingualism and nearly half as English monolinguals (see Table 3). We can still say that three quarters of the Latin@ population speak Spanish, and three quarters of the Latin@ population speak English, and be consistent and not contradictory. One can even argue that Latin@s in the United States have come to “own” English as well as Spanish as a speech community. Is this a stable situation in which more Latin@s learn English, become bilingual or English monolingual, but are refreshed with monolingual Spanish-speaking immigrants? Or will we find that as much as a quarter of the Spanish monolinguals are U.S. born, as we saw in 1976 (Estrada, 1985; Macías, 1985)? What is the role of Spanish language recovery and revival (beyond the teaching of Spanish for heritage speakers) for these English-speaking individuals after a lifetime of interacting with English-dominant schools and workplaces?

Another usual indicator of the stability of the language abilities among these populations is literacy in Spanish (see Table 3). We saw in the 1992 data (possibly) about a 15% lower rate of biliteracy overall than bilingualism (Greenberg, Macías, Rhodes, & Chan, 2001). It seemed that there were oral bilinguals who were literate only in English (about 7% or 8%), and a smaller number who were literate only in Spanish (about 2%), with a 4% to 7% nonliteracy rate across the groups. Of course, this data were from a single point in time, but it is the only nationally representative information we have on biliteracy in the United States.

Underlying the growth in the number of Spanish speakers is the stability of community structures within which to use the language, both a legacy of the prior sovereign’s settlement in a good part of the country. There is an “opportunity structure” for Spanish that is stable and internal to the United States and external to the United States (neighboring Mexico is the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world with 110 million people; Lewis, Simons, & Fennig, 2013). Puerto Rico has a population that is 98% Spanish speaking. The United States is in the northern crown of a continent that has over 300 million speakers of Spanish (Godenzzi, 2006). This does not mean there are no counterforces promoting language shift or attempting to discourage or prohibit the use of the language (García, 2011; Mar-Molinero & Paffey, 2011). It does mean that, overall, Spanish speakers in the United States have increased in number despite them.

What Does This Argument Tell Us About the Status of Spanish?

This argument is about the size of the Spanish-speaking population in the United States, but it is also about sustainability and vitality, across time (historicity). Part of the question is whether the growth needs to continue or has the past growth been enough for a recognition of exceptional status? From a language policy perspective, does there need to be a guarantee of a speech community’s size or continued growth for address? This argument makes the case that the growth over 150 years should count for something.

Discussion

If we return to the eight arguments of Spanish as a second national language in the United States that we started with at the beginning of this essay and ask the question again as to whether Spanish has an exceptional status in the United States, how can we answer? In exploring only some of the arguments, we find logic, fact, if not merit, in them. We have seen that Spanish in the United States does not have a strictly immigrant status, nor can it simply be accepted as a colonial language, implying those who speak it to be descendants of colonial-settlers, ignoring the base of an indigenous gene pool among the majority of Spanish speakers in the country, if not the world. Spanish was planted more than 500 years ago in, and spread among the peoples of, the Western continent, and survives. It continues to grow in numbers of speakers and spreads more widely within the U.S. national territory and is being revived in places and newly spoken in other places. There is at least an appeal to Treaty protections regarding language and cultural liberties against a tide of dominant ideologies of assimilation and Anglo-Euro cultural parochialism. Factually, Spanish has had and has official status. Is this enough or do these arguments demand more? Must it be recognized, given an appropriate status of exceptionalism broadly, as the “second national language” of the country?

As we remember the rationales for various public policies attendant to language status and educational practice, at the beginning of this essay, we perforce return to the notion of language rights, with the freedoms, as well as the duties and obligations, inherent in the notion of rights, as a result of the political organization of communities and collectivities for (self-) governance of those communities.

More recently, in the past half century, the development of international linguistic and human rights has developed more robustly by reflecting on these issues. Language diversity was recognized in many of these discussions, even if language was not initially central to many of the documents that reflected the developing global consensus on the common bases for relationships between nations, and then, more specifically, the relationship between governments and those governed within whatever polity they might be (Macías, 1979). In 1996, the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights was completed by a nongovernmental organization, in collaboration with UNESCO, and has yet to be adopted by national governments. It expressed several principles or arguments regarding the rights to language that are useful to point out here—the different notions of a linguistic right and the notion of a linguistic community as a human collectivity.

The Declaration aims to be applicable to a great diversity of linguistic situations. It has therefore given special attention to the definition of the conceptual apparatus on which its articles are based. Thus, it considers as axes of a linguistic community: historicity, territoriality, self-identification as a people and the fact of having developed a common language as normal means for communication between its members. (Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights Follow Up Committee, 1998)

This exploration of the facts and futures of Spanish in the United States certainly covers these four axes in the affirmative. If Spanish speakers are more specifically the Spanish-speaking linguistic community, then what might be its rights under this Universal Declaration? In a 15-year follow-up meeting (in 2011) of the groups involved in the development and adoption of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, a manifesto of the principles that should guide the implementation of the Declaration was developed and adopted (PEN International, 2011). It distilled 10 principles described as central for equitable linguistic human rights, reflecting a different set of values regarding language diversity than we saw above in Kloss’s (1971) four “theories” and that bear on the status of Spanish in the United States.

Linguistic diversity is a world heritage that must be valued and protected.

Respect for all languages and cultures is fundamental to the process of constructing and maintaining dialogue and peace in the world.

All individuals learn to speak in the heart of a community that gives them life, language, culture, and identity.

Different languages and different ways of speaking are not only means of communication; they are also the milieu in which humans grow and cultures are built.

Every linguistic community has the right for its language to be used as an official language in its territory.

School instruction must contribute to the prestige of the language spoken by the linguistic community of the territory.

It is desirable for citizens to have a general knowledge of various languages, because it fosters empathy and intellectual openness, and contributes to a deeper knowledge of one’s own tongue.

The translation of texts, especially the great works of various cultures, represents a very important element in the necessary process of greater understanding and respect among human beings.

The media is a privileged loudspeaker for making linguistic diversity work and for competently and rigorously increasing its prestige.

The right to use and protect one’s own language must be recognized by the United Nations as one of the fundamental human rights. (PEN International, 2011)

Some countries have adopted new language and cultural policies based more closely on these values, recognizing the language diversity within their borders as part of their national linguistic patrimony. The United States recognized some of these values in adopting the Native American Languages Act in 1990. Mexico adopted Constitutional changes in 2001, recognizing all indigenous languages as coequal in status with Spanish and as part of their national cultural patrimony (Althoff, 2006). These documents, laws, and constitutional changes reflect a different set of ideas regarding language diversity and sociopolitical organization from those on which many language policies are now based in the United States and abroad of one nation one language. Some even argue that there is a new emerging national political linguistic norm in Europe—that bastion, nay root, of one nation one language—that is, national bi- and multilingualism (de Varennes, 2004). Single nation-language nationalism is giving way to additive multilingualism through the construction of the European Union (Mar-Molinero & Stevenson, 2006). Equitable language rights are being discussed and litigated and charters of protection drawn up (Vollebaek, 2010).

Given the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, it would seem that there can be equitable rights for all linguistic communities within each polity, whether based on proportionality, personality, territoriality, historicity, or other principles. Using the Declaration as a guide to “given” status, what would this look like in the United States (for a different rationale and view of the possible futures, or hopeful ones, see Fishman, 2006)?

Official recognition and use of Spanish (along with English) in all jurisdictions in which there is a historical and significant presence of Spanish speakers

The end to anti-Spanish language legislation—including English-only policies and English-restrictive policies, especially those that impede the exercise of fundamental human and civil rights

Affirmatively support the official recognition and use of Spanish, along with English, in the public schools in those areas where there are concentrations of Spanish speakers, or heritage speakers for language recovery purposes

No condition for statehood for Puerto Rico on an English-speaking majority

Establish interpreter and translation services, even multilingual tracks, in public services, courts, health, and communications

Establish a respect for language diversity; recognition and support of all languages especially at local levels where concentration, continuity, historicity, and desire provide a threshold for its recognition and use

With these changes in approach, values, policies, and practices, then Spanish would definitely have a given status as a second national language in the United States. But if our response is based on the ideologies of the past, which supported language imposition and were a mechanism of maintaining White privilege, then this status as a second national language will be merely a descriptor of the language diversity of the country and little more, until democratic demands to the contrary.

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