If I had a penny for each time I’ve heard the argument that English is the language of the land, or that immigrants must speak English in the United States, I’d be off on an island basking in the sun with a Margarita on hand and never looking at my Internet feed. But as we’ve all come to understand, facts don’t matter under the new world order.
The fact is that Spanish has been part of the country since its foundation. Spanish was in America before English was. Much of what is now the United States was absorbed into the union along with its Spanish speaking populations. Those who were absorbed into the union were not required to speak English. As a matter of fact, many who formed the Texas nation were Spanish speakers.
To top it all off with a cherry, there is no law in the United States that makes English the official language, much less the language of the land.
Everywhere you go in the United States, government officials post official notices in English, Spanish and many times other languages.
Thus, the notion that to be American one must speak English is plainly wrong.
For those that these realities aren’t enough to satisfy their thirst to demonize Spanish speakers, here are two additional inconvenient facts.
1. Among native speakers, Spanish is the SECOND most spoken language in the world, after the many dialects of Chinese.
2. The United States boats the SECOND largest Spanish speaking population in the world.
For those readers that continue to insist on demanding that immigrants “assimilate” by speaking English, then I’ll start to demand that they speak Spanish to live in America, after all, Spanish is clearly one of the world’s dominant languages and a part of America.
