Despite Trump’s dislike for Spanish, US is more Latino than he can imagine

“This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish,” Donald Trump had said during one of the debates during his campaign for the 2016 presidential elections.

Nine years later, this week, one of the first actions taken by Trump in his second stint as the US President government was to shut down the Spanish language page of the White House website.

The move did not come as a surprise.

In 2017, he had done the same and also shut down the US government’s Spanish language account on social media.

Despite Trump’s apparent antagonism towards the language, Spanish continues to flourish in the US – and across the world.

More than 600 million people speak Spanish globally, according to a report from the Instituto Cervantes. That is a staggering 7.5 percent of the global population. It also makes Spanish the world’s fourth most-spoken language.

The reasons for this growth are varied, but a crucial factor is the increase in the Latino population, especially in the United States, which has become the second country with the most Spanish speakers in the world, only surpassed by Mexico.

Approximately 62.5 million people in the US are of Hispanic origin. By 2060, the number is expected to exceed 100 million, making up more than 25 percent of the US population.

More than 43 million Americans — that is 13.7 percent of the US population aged five and older — speak Spanish at home, according to official data from 2023.

Although the "English only" controversy is not new in US society, hate attacks in public spaces where Spanish was spoken multiplied during Trump’s first presidency.

With the Trump administration rolling out measures seen as anti-immigrant, especially targeting Latinos, there are fears that the hateful discourse toward Hispanics and their language could intensify.

A linguistic laboratory

Experts, however, point out that demonising Spanish as an invader was wrong.

On the contrary, Spanish was the first European language spoken on the land, which is now the United States.

In Florida, for example, Spanish presence dates back 300 years, and more than 200 years in Arizona, California, and New Mexico. Therefore, US dominance in much of the country was established on already Hispanised foundations.

In Florida, particularly Miami, the spread of the Spanish language has been due to the large waves of Latino migrants settling there.

"Miami is, today, the most fascinating sociolinguistic laboratory in the Spanish-speaking world," Francisco Moreno Fernandez, a prominent sociolinguist, wrote in a research paper titled Perfil linguistico de Miami (Miami Language Profile).

“And it’s also one of the most attractive and significant in the Western world."

Such has been the spread of Spanish in Hialeah, a city adjacent to Miami, that it has even witnessed reverse discrimination – people being discriminated against for not speaking the language.

The land of Spanglish

Linguists say that the amalgamation of English and Spanish has given birth to a delightful hybrid commonly referred to as Spanglish.

"Although it manifests as an auxiliary slang," says Joaquin Badajoz, a member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language, "Spanglish is also a language laboratory.”

“Words are formed and altered there through free and creative contact in informal or work environments," Badajoz tells TRT Espanol.

While there is no doubt that English is the most impactful language globally, influencing practically all languages, the impact is even greater in the case of Spanish in the US, and it is not limited to the use of words or meanings but also grammatical structures.

The Dictionary of the Spanish Language already includes words specific to US Spanish, explains Badajoz, including the term "estadounidismo," meaning specific to the United States.

"Te llamo para atras" (call you back), "me enamore con el" (I fell in love with him), "mi amiga realizo que no le daba tiempo" (to realise), or "te introduzco a un amigo" (to introduce) are characteristic uses of US Spanish.

It is also common to speak of the "parada" instead of “desfile”, or say that something is "mandatorio" instead of "obligatorio" (mandatory), or “soporto a mis hijos” (I support my kids) instead of "apoyo a mis hijos".

After English, Spanish is the most spoken language in US homes, the most studied at all education levels, and also the language of Univision, one of the country’s most important TV networks.

Latino culture and its language are dominating traditionally Anglo-Saxon spaces, with celebrities speaking Spanish on major stages like the Grammys or Oscars.

Singers like Jennifer Lopez and Shakira have sung in Spanish at sporting events as American as the Super Bowl.

While Donald Trump might find Spanish to be less American, he was reminded how closely the language is intertwined with the American way of life when his secretary of state Marco Rubio – a Cuban American – spoke in Spanish at his swearing-in, thanking God, his family and the President.

It can’t get more Latino than that.

(This article was first published in TRT Espanol)