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Spanish in the United States – Part 2

Spanish in the United States Part 2

After the Spanish-American War (1898), the United States gained control over Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. The Spanish-speaking immigrants who came to the United States as a result settled mostly in California, Florida, New York, and New Jersey, where they kept their culture and language alive.

With the Great Depression came a new trend in immigration as more than five million seasonal workers moved from Mexico to fill the labor shortage created by the Second World War, especially in the agricultural, construction, and railway industries.

Throughout the 20th century immigrants from most Latin American countries fled to the United States from their politically unstable or war-torn countries.

The early 21st century has seen the growth of Spanish TV channels, the predominance of Latin music and culture in Hollywood and the media, as well as the growing recognition from the business world of an untapped market sector with great spending capital.

Spanish in the United States

Over forty million Spanish speakers live and work in the United States (13 percent of the population) and more than 28 million speak Spanish as their primary language at home. That makes the U.S. the third largest Spanish-speaking country in the world.

 Spanish in the United States

Since the days of Ponce de León, the Spanish language has become deeply entrenched as part of American life and culture. The fountain of youth may continue to be elusive, but offering websites, brochures, catalogues and support in Spanish is a guaranteed strategy for reaching out to a large – and growing – sector of the population in the U.S.

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