The twenty-first century has seen a surge in scholarship on Latino educational history and a new nonbinary umbrella term, Latinx, that a younger generation prefers. Many of historian Victoria-María MacDonald's astute observations in 2001 presaged the growth of the field. Focus has increased on Spanish-surnamed teachers and discussions have grown about the Latino experience in higher education, especially around student activism on campus. Great strides are being made in studying the history of Spanish-speaking regions with long ties to the United States, either as colonies or as sites of large-scale immigration, including Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines. Historical inquiry into the place of Latinos in the US educational system has also developed in ways that MacDonald did not anticipate. The growth of the comparative race and ethnicity field in and of itself has encouraged cross-ethnic and cross-racial studies, which often also tie together larger themes of colonialism, language instruction, legal cases, and civil rights or activism.
An American Language is a political history of the Spanish language in the United States. The nation has always been multilingual and the Spanish language in particular has remained as an important political issue into the present. After the U.S.-Mexican War, the Spanish language became a language of politics as Spanish speakers in the U.S. Southwest used it to build territorial and state governments. In the twentieth century, Spanish became a political language where speakers and those opposed to its use clashed over what Spanish's presence in the United States meant. This book recovers this story by using evidence that includes Spanish language newspapers, letters, state and territorial session laws, and federal archives to profile the struggle and resilience of Spanish speakers who advocated for their language rights as U.S. citizens. Comparing Spanish as a language of politics and as a political language across the Southwest and noncontiguous territories provides an opportunity to measure shifts in allegiance to the nation and exposes differing forms of nationalism. Language concessions and continued use of Spanish is a measure of power. Official language recognition by federal or state officials validates Spanish speakers' claims to US citizenship. The long history of policies relating to language in the United States provides a way to measure how U.S. visions of itself have shifted due to continuous migration from Latin America. Spanish-speaking U.S. citizens are crucial arbiters of Spanish language politics and their successes have broader implications on national policy and our understanding of Americans.
Literate English speakers in the United States have always had the benefit of holding a ballot in a language they understand. Yet there is an often overlooked history of states protecting non-English-speaking voters and the illiterate. Consider New Mexico, where elections in many counties and even the territorial legislature itself operated in Spanish for decades after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo made the former Mexican citizens who remained on the land citizens of the United States in 1848. 1 The political strength of Spanish speakers in New Mexico resulted in the election of Spanish-surnamed governors, state legislators, and many other elected officials, including the nation's first Mexican American U.S. senator, Octaviano Larrazolo. 2 In the nineteenth century, many states encouraged greater voter participation through literacy and language aid. 3 New York offered sample ballots and instruction cards in 1892 in "other languages as the officer or officers charged with providing them shall deem necessary." 4 In 1891, Colorado state law decreed: "When any voter … shall also make oath that he cannot speak and understand when spoken, the English language … interpreters may assist such persons … in making up their ballots." 5 In New Mexico, where a larger illiterate and Spanish-speaking population resided, ballots were printed with party-specific emblems to assist voters. 6 This extension of the ballot to the illiterate and non-English speakers corresponded with higher voter participation than subsequent elections in the twentieth century. 7 Ballots since then have become increasingly inscrutable due to changes to the election system itself. The secret ballot became standard in the 1880s, meaning voters cast their votes in private voting booths, which could make it harder for illiterate or non-English-speaking voters. The Progressive Era also encouraged citizen-created initiatives and referendums, which required voters to obtain at times a postgraduate level of education to understand the (often poorly written) proposed legislation. 8 Meanwhile, as voter responsibility increased, millions of immigrants entered the United States-many of whom naturalized prior to an English-language requirement or without sufficient English-language skills to understand the ballot.
The year 1975 marked a watershed year for Spanish-surnamed people in the United States and their relationship with the federal government. In that year Congress extended the Voting Rights Act to include a “language minority” category, requiring federal election officials to translate election materials under certain conditions. By validating language rights for language minorities, Congress expanded federal voting protections far beyond African Americans. Advocates for Spanish speakers took up the cause before Congress, which created a new federally protected category based on the long history of discrimination in education and society they collected in testimonies. These language protections catered largely to Spanish speakers, though the category also included Alaska Natives, Native Americans, and Asian Americans. The process of gaining a separate language minority status is explored in this article, which explains how Congress chose to create a law that included Spanish speakers by name.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.