The Politics of Latino Spanish

The Politics of Latino Spanish

* “Young Cuban-American activist criticized for not speaking language of homeland” By Russell Contreras, The Durango Herald (April 1, 2018)

* “Most Hispanic parents speak Spanish to their children, but this is less the case in later immigrant generations” By Mark Hugo Lopez, Jens Manuel Krogstad and Antonio Flores, Pew Resarch Center (April 2, 2018)

Young Cuban-American

activist criticized for not

speaking language of homeland

By Russell Contreras

The Durango Herald (April 1, 2018)

ALBUQUERQUE (Associated Press) – An attack on 18-year-old Cuban-American and Parkland activist Emma González for not speaking Spanish by an Iowa Republican congressman’s campaign staff highlights the pressures U.S.-born Latinos face on language.

“This is how you look when you claim Cuban heritage yet don’t speak Spanish and ignore the fact that your ancestors fled the island when the dictatorship turned Cuba into a prison camp, after removing all weapons from its citizens; hence their right to self-defense,” read a meme with Gonzalez’s photo that was posted on Rep. Steve King’s campaign Facebook page.

After facing criticism for attacking the teenager, King’s campaign team deleted the post.

The use of Spanish by U.S. Hispanics has long been a hot political topic. But rarely has a Republican, who has advocated for harsh immigration restrictions, criticized a Latino for not speaking Spanish well. Usually, politicians complain about the proliferation of Spanish in the public sphere and what it means about spikes in immigration.

Here’s a look at how the use of Spanish language has played a role in defining U.S.-born Latinos:

White Southerners fought along bilingual Tejanos at the Alamo during the Texas revolution. But after Texas declared its independence in 1836, Mexican Americans began facing discrimination there, and officials began conducting business in English only.

As the U.S. gained territories in the Southwest that formerly belonged to Mexico, white land speculators illegally seized land owned by Mexican Americans despite guarantees outlined in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the U.S.-Mexican War.

Court proceedings were conducted in English, creating more barriers for Latinos to dispute land grabs and discrimination. Poor, segregated schools also prevented Mexican-American children from obtaining strong English literacy for generations.

To halt Latino children from speaking Spanish in school, teachers and principals throughout the Southwest physically punished them for using Spanish. In Los Angeles as late as 1968, high school students were paddled for blurting out Spanish phrases. Bobby Lee Verdugo, 67, remembers being paddled often in front of classmates for speaking Spanish.

“He tried to make a joke about it when it happened,” said Yoli Rios, 67, a classmate who later became his wife. “But I know it was painful.”

The treatment prompted Verdugo to join the 1968 L.A. walkouts that forced schools to end punishment for speaking Spanish and later introduced bilingual education classes. Students also staged walkouts in Houston. Irene Vasquez, chair of Chicana and Chicano Studies Department at the University of New Mexico, says that activism gave rise to the “English-only” movement in several states.

The conflict over Spanish was evident in Marfa, Texas, during filming of the 1956 movie “Giant,” which was directed by George Stevens and starred Liz Taylor and James Dean. Although the movie was about the racism Mexican Americans face, the children who were cast as extras were prevented from speaking Spanish at their real-life segregated school.

The teachers made students write Spanish words on paper, placed those papers in a box and buried “Mr. Spanish” in a symbolic funeral in front of Marfa’s Blackwell School, according to the 2015 PBS Voces documentary “Children of Giant.”

During the 1960 presidential election, Jacqueline Kennedy recorded what is believed to be the first Spanish-language television ad targeting U.S. Latinos. She urged Hispanics to vote for her husband, Sen. John F. Kennedy, for president. Viva Kennedy! clubs sprang up throughout the Southwest and helped give Kennedy a tiny edge to defeat Richard Nixon.

Since then, there have been prominent Spanish-language ads targeting Latino voters. Texas Republican Sen. John Tower, for example, used a Spanish ballad in a TV ad to win a close re-election by capturing 37 percent of the Hispanic vote.

George H.W. Bush featured his Spanish-speaking daughter-in-law in a television commercial during his successful 1988 presidential campaign. Former President George W. Bush used Tejano singer Emilio Navaira in his bid for re-election as Texas governor, and later spoke Spanish on the campaign trail during his 2000 presidential race.

More than 37 million Latinos in the U.S. speak Spanish at home. But recent studies show that the percentage of Hispanics who speak Spanish at home has declined over the last decade. The Pew Research Center found that the percentage dropped from 78 percent to 73 percent. According to Pew, some 89 percent of Hispanic children and 94 percent of Latino millennials who are born on the U.S. mainland speak English proficiently.

When Emma González spoke at the “March for Our Lives” rally March 24, she galvanized the crowd and television audiences with a speech about gun control, in English. Univision reports she does not speak Spanish.

FacTank

Most Hispanic parents speak

Spanish to their children, but

this is less the case in later

immigrant generations

By Mark Hugo Lopez, Jens Manuel Krogstad And Antonio Flores

Pew Resarch Center (April 2, 2018)

U.S. Latinos say it’s important for future generations of Hispanics to speak Spanish, and the vast majority speak the language to their children. However, the share of Latino parents who ensure the language lives on with their children declines as their immigrant connections become more distant, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.

Overall, 85% of Latino parents say they speak Spanish to their children, according to the Center’s 2015 National Survey of Latinos. Among immigrant parents, nearly all (97%) say they do this. But the share drops to 71% among U.S.-born second-generation Latino parents (those with at least one immigrant parent). And the share falls to just 49% among third or higher generation Latino parents – those born in the U.S. to U.S.-born parents.

Spanish use also declines in mixed families where one spouse or partner is non-Latino. About 92% of Latino parents with a Latino spouse or partner speak Spanish to their children. By contrast, just 55% of Latinos parents with a non-Latino-partner or spouse say they speak Spanish to their children.

Besides speaking Spanish to their children, Hispanic parents can pass on the language by regularly encouraging their children to speak it. About 70% of all Hispanic parents say they provide such encouragement often, but again, successive generations are less likely than immigrant parents to say they do this.

Spanish has long been a part of life for today’s Latino adults. Nine-in-ten (90%) say Spanish was spoken in their home when they were growing up, and 81% say their parents often or sometimes encouraged them to speak Spanish when growing up. (Notably, 20% of Latino adults say their parents often or sometimes discouraged them from speaking Spanish when growing up.) Today, nearly all Latinos (96%) say their parents speak Spanish, and unlike some other language measures, this share holds relatively steady across generations.

Not only do nearly all Hispanic adults have a personal connection to Spanish, they also express a desire for the language to live on: 88% say it is important to them that future generations of Hispanics living in the U.S. be able to speak Spanish, with vast majorities holding this view across generations.

The Center’s 2015 survey findings also show that Spanish dominance is on the decline among second- and third-generation Latinos. While 61% of Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. are Spanish dominant (and another 32% are bilingual), the share who are Spanish dominant drops to 6% among second-generation Hispanics and to less than 1% among third or higher generation Hispanics. Meanwhile, the share of Hispanics who are English dominant rises across generations: Just 7% of immigrant Hispanics are English dominant, a share that rises to 75% among third-generation Hispanics.

Overall, about 40 million people in the U.S. speak Spanish at home, making it the country’s second-most spoken language. At the same time, growth in the number of Spanish-speaking Hispanics has slowed, according to the Center’s analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. As a result, the share of Hispanics who speak Spanish at home has declined, while the share that speaks only English at home has increased, especially among children.

These trends are expected to continue as Hispanics born in the U.S. increasingly drive the group’s population growth, in large part due to slowing immigration from Mexico (and, to a lesser extent, high intermarriage rates). Already, most U.S. Hispanics say a person doesn’t need to speak Spanish to be considered Hispanic.