Epilogue

This epilogue briefly identifies some of the major changes in Spanish language politics since World War II. These include community shifts in activism. For example, the Chicano Movementreclaimed the language and advocated for culturally affirming bilingual education programs. The epilogue also turns to federal support for Spanish instruction with the 1968 Bilingual Education Act and with the 1975 extension to the Voting Rights Act that provides federal protection for ballots in languages other than English. Spanish is no longer a language of just the Southwest and there are major populations of Spanish speakers in cities like Chicago, New York, and Miami today. In 2013, tens of millions of U.S. residents spoke Spanish in their homes. Spanish language perseverance in the United States is due to a long history of Latin American migration to the country. It began as a language of settlement and power in the nineteenth century and has transformed into a language often deemed as foreign or un-American. Spanish is an American language historically and this book has recovered that history.

Strategic Pan-Americanism

A broad federal and national interest in the goals of Pan-Americanism fueled Pan-American supporters across the United States to encourage the teaching of the Spanish language. By the 1940s, Spanish became the most common foreign language learned in the United States. New Mexico used the newfound national interest in the Spanish language to boost its political importance. After all, what other state had such a close tie to the language of Latin America? In both California and New Mexico, ethnic Mexican journalists and community organizers used the move towards Pan-Americanism to organize, unite, and draw resources to ethnic Mexican communities. Cultura Panamericana, Inc., a group located in Los Angeles and organized by Mexican American middle-class professionals, used the broader interest in Pan-Americanism to court financialsupporters for their community program that aspired to create a Spanish-language library and an after-school program that taught Spanish and Latin American culture. Ethnic Mexicans could use pan-Americanismas a way to better serve the nation.

The United States Sees Language

In 1902, U.S. Senator Albert Beveridge led four senators from the senate committee on the territories into New Mexico, Arizona, and Oklahoma territory. While New Mexico had operated in Spanish in its courts, schools, and politics for decades, Beveridge’s team exposed the rest of the nation to this Spanish language reality in their campaign to portray the territory as unfit for statehood. During the Senate subcommittee hearings, dozens of New Mexicans relayed their connection to both their United States citizenship and their use of the Spanish language. From census takers to court interpreters to principals, Spanish-speaking New Mexicans defended their use of Spanish. While the use of the Spanish language did not definitively delay statehood, the increased national scrutiny in the media of the language did result in a shift in territorial policies related to language that increasingly favored English in order to better conform to the country's expectations.

Introduction

The Spanish language in the United States has a long history. An American Language rediscovers the politics of the Spanish language in the period following the U.S.-Mexican War. The story begins with the United States takeover of Mexican lands that included American Indians and Mexican settlers. The settlers became U.S. citizens at the end of the war through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. These Spanish-speaking Mexican settlers thereafter used the treaty as the arbiter of their citizenship, making them treaty citizens. The United States permitted Spanish to become a language of politics in the Southwest in the nineteenth century. Comparing Spanish as a political language across the Southwest and Puerto Rico provides an opportunity to understand larger shifts in national views of citizenship. Comparing federal, state, territorial, and local approaches to the Spanish language also demonstrates the resilience of Spanishlanguage preferences among residents of the Southwest. Spanish is an American language due to its long history and continuing importance in the nation. Tracing the multilingual history of the nation provides an opportunity to include the United States into larger discussions of how migration changes a nation and how its citizens view language.

Choosing Language

Formal public schools were not uniform throughout the U.S. Southwest in the nineteenth century that led some treaty citizens to have more opportunities for bilingual education or to remain in a Spanish-speaking social world. Beginning with a case study of the Vallejo family letters, this chapter traces the opportunities available to treaty citizens to choose to learn either English or Spanish. It also considers those who worked to retain the Spanish language. Treaty citizens need for Spanish language translations weakened more quickly in places where robust public schools encouraged or mandated a transition to English. By contrast, in places where schools did not receive funding or lacked an English-language speaker, Spanish remained the major language of society and an important part of politics. Anglos also at times chose to learn Spanish, oftentimes informally and due to their close residence or interactions with treaty citizens. Spanish has a longstanding and important place in the Southwest from place names, to choice phrases, and serves as a marker of identity for residents of the U.S. Southwest, not just those who used it because it was their mother tongue.

Competing Nationalisms

Comparing the approaches to Spanish language instruction in New Mexico and Puerto Rico offers a focused study of how language and national identity intersect. In Puerto Rico, Spanish remained a language of necessity into the 1940s despite educational efforts to incorporate English language instruction. In 1942, a Senate subcommittee hearing exposed the absurdity of trying to impose English on a weak educational system. Additionally, the fact that U.S. officials pushed English was an affront to Puerto Ricans' sense of nationalism, which included being a Spanish-speaking society. Puerto Rican educators supported Spanish-language instruction in their schools for pragmatic reasons and as a form of nationalism that distinguished them from the United States. By contrast, Spanish in New Mexico was largely the language of culture and the home and no longer politics or society by the 1940s. New Mexicans rooted themselves as U.S. citizens first and used Spanish as a means of aiding the nation. The major political argument used in New Mexico to reintroduce Spanish language instruction in public elementary schools centered on the crucial role of the language in helping to fulfill national hemispheric goals.

The Federal Government Rediscovers Spanish

During World War II, the federal government supported federal outreach to Latin America and, by extension, to the ethnic Mexican community located in the United States. They did so in an effort to foster good relations with Latin American nations. The Office of Inter-American Affairs and the Office of War Information hired ethnic Mexican newspaper editors, professors, and community organizers who knew the distinct factors and preferred identities of Spanish-speaking communities across the United States. These employees permitted targeted approaches towards the two different groups of Spanish speakers in the U.S. More specifically, those who had longstanding ties to the land and citizenship compared with those who were more recent immigrants with strong connections to Latin America. These community-specific programs often included language outreach efforts or used Spanish to reach its audience.

The Limits of Americanization

One of the key roles of the public school system at the turn of the twentieth century was to create U.S. citizens. The federal government supported educational efforts in the noncontiguous territories that the United States acquired during the Spanish-American War. While both Arizona and New Mexico remained territories until 1912, they never received any federal educational aid. Americanization efforts across the United States largely encouraged a move away from foreign language instruction in the public schools in favor of English as the language of instruction. The interests of Americanization advocates coincided with the move to segregate students of Mexican descent into separate schools and classrooms throughout the Southwest. Administrators claimed they separated ethnic Mexican students due to their inability to speak the English language fluently. Despite the segregation of many Spanish-speaking students across the Southwest, Spanish remained in many classrooms in New Mexico—especially in the northern counties. Spanish was used in schools with the early support of the territorial superintendent of instruction and the New Mexico Journal of Education who both recognized that the vast majority of students in those districts entered school as monolingual Spanish speakers.

A Language of Identity

At the turn of the twentieth century, the influx of Mexican immigrants due to the Mexican Revolution transformed the view of Spanish in the Southwest. Previously seen as a language of government and society, Spanish increasingly became a language of foreigners and radicals. New Mexico’s treatment of Spanish differed from the rest of the Southwest, though even its commitment to translations waned by the end of the 1930s. Yet monolingual Spanish speakers persisted in filing petitions with local, state, and federal officials, as well as voting in high numbers. Spanish language letters sent to county and state political party leaders provide the evidence for this chapter. Sent in the first two decades of the twentieth century, they document the continued active political participation of nuevomexicanos despite increased emphasis on English.

A Language of Citizenship

Treaty citizens became invested in a U.S. political system where the federal, state, and local governments initially catered to them in their preferred language, Spanish. This chapter briefly traces the arc of Spanish as a language of citizenship. States and territories had the power to determine the parameters of individuals participating in elections, in courts, as jurors, and by officials in federal and state government positions. California, Colorado, and Arizona’s concessions to Spanish as a language of participation for citizenship began with official recognition, but never became fully bilingual regions. New Mexico, on the other hand, used Spanish as an important part of the electoral process and the courts. Treaty citizens in New Mexico became invested in the territory's elected and appointed positions. The political power meant Spanish had a centralrole in territorial politics. Treaty citizens participated and engaged in a U.S. political system in Spanish in elections, in the courts, and in juries, which forces a reassessment of American citizenship in the last half of the 19th century.