U.S. now the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking nation

[jimmy olsen]

I'm skeptical of the conclusion, perhaps the studies I've seen are out of date, but all the ones I've read say that spanish speakers are assimilating as fast or faster than previous waves of immigration.

http://blog.chron.com/lavoz/2015/06/u-s-now-the-worlds-second-largest-spanish-speaking-nation/#34007101=0

U.S. now the world's second-largest Spanish-speaking nation

Posted on June 30, 2015  |  By Dylan Baddour   

The United States boasts the world's second-largest Spanish-speaking population, now that this country's Hispanic population outnumbers the entire populace of Spain.

Only Mexico has more Spanish-speakers than the U.S., but even that is expected to change by 2050, when the United States will likely be the world's largest Spanish-speaking country, according to a new report on the Spanish language by the Cervantes Institute in Spain.

The 77-page report dedicates one of seven chapters to U.S. Spanish language , tracking momentous growth in the scope and presence of Uncle Sam's Hispanic population in recent decades.

"More than half of the growth of the U.S. population between 2000 and 2010 resulted from the growth of the Hispanic community," the report said, citing numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau.

In the first decade of the second millennium the U.S. population grew by 27.3 million, and 15.2 million of those people are Spanish-speakers. The Hispanic population grew by 43 percent while the entire nation grew by 9.7 percent. The report attributes that discrepancy to both Hispanics' higher reproductive rates and the steady influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants to the United States.

In total, there are almost 53 million Spanish speakers in this country of about 320 million. Of those about 41.3 million are native speakers, and about 11.6 million are bilingual — generally the children of immigrants. But those official numbers exclude the estimated 9.7 million Spanish-speakers who entered the country under the radar.

With those boosts in population, U.S. Hispanics have seen their economic presence grow as well. According to the Institute report, Hispanic buying power has doubled each decade since 1990, and currently sits at $1.2 billion, making Hispanics in the U.S. the world's 14th strongest economic demographic.

That prominence has given the Spanish language a special place in the U.S., where 40 percent of radio and 34 percent of TV programming is either mostly, or entirely, in Spanish. That Spanish-language media sphere, the report said, "indicates that the Spanish-speaking community of the United States has reached the critical mass sufficient to survive on its own, in the margin of English."

In other words social integration in the United States no longer means Spanish-speakers must move away from their mother tongue. And as their numbers grow, their language has become an ever more crucial skill for non-Hispanic Americans to master, as the numbers show.

In 1995, enrollment in Spanish-language courses in the U.S. surpassed, for the first time, enrollment in all other foreign languages, and so it continues. Now, more than 7.8 million people in the United States are studying Spanish as a second language. The report notes non-Hispanic Americans are studying Spanish for professional advancement or as a communication necessity, and empirical studies show that the U.S. labor market rewards the ability to communicate dually in English and Spanish.

Because beyond the United States, Spanish sports the world's second-largest number (after Mandarin) of native speakers: 470 million. It's the third-most used language on the Internet, as well as the second-most read language on Wikipedia.  Spanish is the second-most "economically important" language after English and before Mandarin, the report said.

Texas was almost 40 percent Hispanic in 2014. Since 2010, the state's Hispanic population grew by 9.4 percent, while the entire state population grew by 7 percent. During that time Hispanics claimed one more percentage point of the state population, mirroring growth in other minorities, while the state's share or white Texan's fell 2 percent, according to Census Bureau numbers.

[dps]

I'm skeptical of the conclusion, perhaps the studies I've seen are out of date, but all the ones I've read say that spanish speakers are assimilating as fast or faster than previous waves of immigration.

http://blog.chron.com/lavoz/2015/06/u-s-now-the-worlds-second-largest-spanish-speaking-nation/#34007101=0

U.S. now the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking nation

Posted on June 30, 2015  |  By Dylan Baddour   

The United States boasts the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking population, now that this country’s Hispanic population outnumbers the entire populace of Spain.

Only Mexico has more Spanish-speakers than the U.S., but even that is expected to change by 2050, when the United States will likely be the world’s largest Spanish-speaking country, according to a new report on the Spanish language by the Cervantes Institute in Spain.

The 77-page report dedicates one of seven chapters to U.S. Spanish language , tracking momentous growth in the scope and presence of Uncle Sam’s Hispanic population in recent decades.

“More than half of the growth of the U.S. population between 2000 and 2010 resulted from the growth of the Hispanic community,” the report said, citing numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Among other things, this report seems to equate being Hispanic with speaking Spanish, which isn't always the case.  Sure, Hispanic immigrants speak Spanish, sometimes exclusively, but their children are, as best as I can tell, almost always bilingual, and people of Hispanic heritage who aren't 1st or 2nd generation generally don't speak Spanish any more than I speak Irish.

[The Brain]

Much of the growth of the Hispanic community is not related to the number of individuals.

[citizen k]

Much of the growth of the Hispanic community is not related to the number of individuals.

They're becoming Americans.

[Josquius]

It would be nice to see some states that do all their business in a language other than English.

[Razgovory]

 

[garbon]

It would be nice to see some states that do all their business in a language other than English.

Why?

[Martinus]

It would be nice to see some states that do all their business in a language other than English.

There are such states already. For example France.

[Tonitrus]

It would be nice to see some states that do all their business in a language other than English.

There are such states already. For example France.

You may not have kept up with the thread topic, but we're talking about 'Merica here. 

[jimmy olsen]

The number of illegal immigrants in the US has dropped by a million since 2007. Better enforced and demographic change in Mexico is driving the drop, as well as the slow economy in the US.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/flow-of-illegal-immigration-slows-as-us-mexico-border-dynamics-evolve/2015/05/27/c5caf02c-006b-11e5-833c-a2de05b6b2a4_story.html

Pew study from 2012 says Hispanics are quickly assimilating.
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/04/iv-language-use-among-latinos/

-38% of foreign-born Hispanic immigrants said they could speak English "pretty well" or "very well."

-92% of  Hispanic 2nd generation immigrants said they could speak English at least "pretty well."

-96% of Hispanic 3rd generation immigrants said they could speak English at least "pretty well."

-91% of foreign-born Hispanic immigrants said they could speak Spanish "pretty well" or "very well.

-82% of second generation Hispanic immigrants said they could speak Spanish at least "pretty well."

-47% of third generation Hispanic immigrants said they could speak Spanish at least "pretty well."

-Only 1% of third generation or higher Hispanic immigrants said they used Spanish as their primary language, compared to 8% of second-generation immigrants and 61% of first-generation immigrants.

[Josquius]

It would be nice to see some states that do all their business in a language other than English.

Why?

Diversity, encouraging more people to learn Spanish (thus less French), rule of cool.

[Maximus]

It would be nice to see some states that do all their business in a language other than English.

Why?

Diversity, encouraging more people to learn Spanish (thus less French), rule of cool.

That's the opposite of diversity

[Razgovory]

It must be nice living in one of those countries were nobody speaks the same language.  Everyone screaming and shouting at one another with no meaning or comprehensive.  It's like the old Pdox forums.

[Martinus]

It would be nice to see some states that do all their business in a language other than English.

There are such states already. For example France.

You may not have kept up with the thread topic, but we're talking about 'Merica here. 

You make it sound as if context wasn't anathema on Languish.

[DGuller]

Ay, caramba!