The Early Political History of Spanish in the United States

There is a long history of Spanish language use in the current United States, especially in the Southwest. The nation’s relationship to Spanish changed profoundly in 1848 with the close of the U.S.-Mexico War (1846-1848) through the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which recognized former Mexican citizens as U.S. citizens. New citizens from the former Mexican territories of California and New Mexico had the political clout to keep Spanish in the political conversation. The United States’ relationship to Spanish transformed again in 1898 with the territorial gains due to the Spanish-American War. The addition of Puerto Rico in particular added the largest group of Spanish speakers to the nation. There is no official language in the United States, but the federal government has operated almost exclusively in English. Yet before language rights were even defined at an international level by UNESCO, Spanish speakers in the United States successfully advocated for their right to use Spanish in politics. Spanish-speakers could participate in politics in their native language because it could be found on officially published government documents, ballots, on stage at political events, in territorial legislatures, and in politically leaning newspapers. This chapter traces the origins of Spanish in the United States, especially through the ways in which the language was used by Spanish-speaking citizens in the nineteenth-century Southwest.