Culture Talk September Edition: Hispanic and Latinx Heritage

Spanish in the United States By: Israa Jahan With the immigration of many Hispanic and Latinx people to the United States over the years, Spanish has become not only the fastest growing language in the nation, but also the number one non-English language in America.

On a worldwide scale, there are more than 450 million native Spanish speakers, making it the second most native-spoken language behind Chinese, and placing it in front of English, which actually comes in third, with 360 million native speakers. In terms of the United States, it is the second largest Spanishspeaking country after Mexico. Even though English is the most widely-spoken language, or the lingua franca, of the world, Spanish is quickly reaching the status of being considered a global language.

This raises the question: how dominant a role will Spanish play in America?

Through an educational perspective, many school districts around the nation require a foreign language proficiency for graduation, and many colleges use it as a requirement to be accepted into their programs to earn a bachelor of arts and even a bachelor of science. However, foreign language requirements are actually steadily declining in the United States, with only 20% of American students even taking a foreign language before college, and colleges dropping language requirements: there has 33