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"In the US, Spanish has stopped being a foreign language."
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| Lira |
| quote: |  Over the past two weeks, Jose Baig and Carlos Ceresole from the Spanish American service of the BBC travelled from the east to the west coast of the US, speaking only Spanish.
Their aim was to get a flavour of life among Spanish speakers in the country.
Jose Baig reflects on some of their experiences:
You are in a town in Florida and you decide to check who speaks Spanish there. Easy enough, you would think. How many people do you think you need to ask?
It took us 16 people and 50 minutes to find someone who spoke Spanish, as a second language.
You come across someone with thick black hair, brown skin and a badge on his chest with the name Armando Perez.
How much do you bet that he speaks Spanish? Well, keep hold of your money because this Armando did not speak a word apart from his own name and despite, as they say in the southern US, "looking Mexican".
How much do you think a group of business people in Houston make, many of whom began selling tortillas on street corners?
We are talking of the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce - a group of 700 companies, almost all run by immigrants - which has an annual turnover of $1bn.
You meet a soldier in San Antonio, Texas, who was in Iraq and who tells you what he is most proud of is serving in the US Army and speaking his own language - Spanish.
Criticism
These are just a few of the stereotypes surrounding Spanish in the US that we saw overturned during the two-week journey we have just finished.
Hispanics and African-Americans live in permanent conflict, competing for jobs and services, don't they? That is what the newspapers and the statistics say.
But we can give the example of Katrina, an African-American, who studied Spanish in school and whose six-year-old daughter speaks Spanish fluently as a result of playing with her Latina friends. Another cliche bites the dust.
There are plenty of people who criticise Latinos for not making an effort to learn English and integrate.
Those who do should meet Rey Rodriguez, whose ancestors arrived in the US six generations ago and who, despite his university degrees and his impeccable English, still gets called "beaner", the most disrespectful way of referring to an immigrant.
Time for some statistics - according to a leading market research company Global Insight, 15% of people who define themselves as Hispanic just speak English, while 25% of Hispanics just speak Spanish.
The rest speak the two languages, with differing degrees of fluency, obviously.
As a woman from El Salvador, who works as a restaurant cook, told us: " I might not pronounce it right but I know what I am saying."
Daily life
The question we asked ourselves before setting off was, would it be possible to cross the US from coast to coast just speaking Spanish?
The answer: we don't know. It most likely depends on the circumstances and which places you travel through.
We almost always found people ready to try to communicate even though they didn't speak our language.
Another factor is that although we insisted on speaking Spanish, we understood everything that was said to us in English. Our reaction was probably very different to someone who truly understood no English.
It also depends on where and when you need the other person to speak Spanish.
To order in a restaurant, maybe you can point but what about someone who doesn't speak English and needs to go to the doctor, or to a parents' evening at their children's school?
What we do know is that Spanish is present in the daily life of all Americans. Even the most hardened defender of "English Only" can stumble across Spanish while changing TV channels or walking in the street.
There are some 250 TV channels and 650 radio stations that broadcast programmes in Spanish, and the number keeps growing.
Perhaps the best conclusion is from an email sent to our blog from a Spanish teacher in New York, who wrote: "In the US, Spanish has stopped being a foreign language."
You can read more about Jose and Carlos's journey across the US in their blog on bbcmundo.com. |
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/...cas/6943980.stm
I think this is all very interesting because, in spite of purist attempts to revert this situation, there are several reasons why it seems this trend won't change any time soon. But, is Spanish really this common in the US? As an outsider, I'd like to know whether or not this is an exaggeration, and how common it is to study Spanish as a 2nd/foreign language :) |
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| Orbax |
| 24 years here, never spoken a word outside class |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Orbax
24 years here, never spoken a word outside class |
Not even during the time you lived in Florida? In that case, do you have any idea of why people seem to feel so "threatened" by the Spanish language in the US then? |
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| NeoPhono |
| If they tried the same thing through the middle or northern part of the US it would be a different story. In pockets and across the South it's prevalent, but still foreign. |
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| Clovis |
| quote: | | In that case, do you have any idea of why people seem to feel so "threatened" by the Spanish language in the US then? |
White supremacist undertones... |
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| bas |
| I've never spoken nor bothered to learn Spanish and I live in LA :p |
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| VAR |
it is extremely prevalent.
i speak some spanish.
i remember the dual-language signs becoming prevalent, still are- ok.
i remember being at the bank one day and all the big signs were in spanish...
i had to pinch myself, look around at all the people there, and say to myself "you are not in central/south america, you are home."
:conf: |
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| Frenchie |
I wish they had Spanish as a mandetory class here. Instead they want to make chinese a mandatory class to take. in' chinaman are OVERTAKING US. RUUUUUUUUN.
I was taking Spanish for about 1 month until I dropped it to take an extra math class. |
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| inconspicuous |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
Not even during the time you lived in Florida? In that case, do you have any idea of why people seem to feel so "threatened" by the Spanish language in the US then? |
Nobody feels 'threatened' by it. Most people have to take a foreign language in high school, and Spanish is by far the most common. Passing 3 years of a class in an average high school doesn't make someone fluent, or even necessarily capable, but yes, a lot of people in this generation have at least some basic understanding of it. Outside of major cities & the south, you don't hear it too often, but in those places, it can come in handy. I can't think of too many times when I've actually needed it, but having some being able to at least understand it certainly has its advantages, especially since it's usually greatly appreciated, even if only for the effort (so long as it comes of as being genuine).
the 'threat' idea trickles down from debates on immigration policy, and has little to nothing to do with the actual use of the language. |
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| tubularbills |
funny that they took I-10 all the way.
wonder how successful they'd be taking I-90 acros...
btw, i took german in high school, not spanish. |
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| TweeK |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
If they tried the same thing through the middle or northern part of the US it would be a different story. |
arent we smart? good one. But for the most part i'd say spanish is on the rise. Its most common around cities with a high hispanic rate: NYC, LA, Chicago, Miami, Houston.
Spanish being my native language i can relate to this. I have notice the increase in the amount of Anglo and others taking part in learning spanish. Not so much in actually learning the language but breaking that language barrier between the two languages.
The number hispanics is in this country is increasing rapidly by the day which makes "spanish" a not so foreign language after all. |
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| plastikE |
| It's pretty prevalent here. When I was studying at U of A in Tucson, it was pretty much like living in Mexico when being off of campus. Here in Phoenix it's starting to feel the same, minus a few areas (Scottsdale) |
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