Sociology

The Hispanic population of the United States is not monolithic. The people who can be classified as Hispanic Americans come from a variety of national backgrounds and belong to various ethnicities. The general factor common to all Hispanic Americans is that they have origins in Spanish speaking countries and for many of them Spanish is the language theyre most fluent in. Hispanic Americans also generally belong to the Roman Catholic Church, in contrast to the majority in the United States who belong to one of the Protestant churches. Hispanics are generally also darker skinned and have a different set of racial features than the White majority, this however varies from Hispanic sub-group to sub-group. Hispanics of Iberian ancestry or White Hispanics look more like Anglos than Hispanics of Mestizo (mixed-SpanishIndian) ancestry. These three common characteristics of the Hispanic Americans set them apart from the White majority in the country and are often used as justifications for discrimination against Hispanic Americans.

The Spanish were the first European country to colonize the Americas. In the region constituting the present day United States of America, the first European colony was that of St. Augustine in present day state of Florida formed in 1565. In contrast, the first colony established by English speaking Europeans was the short lived Roanoke Colony, formed in 1585 in the present day state of North Carolina. Thus Spanish language speaking people have a long history in the United States, one that is even longer than that of the English-speaking people.

However despite this the Spanish-speaking population of the United States has had to endure years of government supported discrimination at the hands of the English-speaking majority.

One historic incident that contributed greatly to an increase in the number of Hispanics in the United States is the end of the Mexican American War with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Following the concept of Manifest Destiny the United States forced a  defeated Mexico to cede to them the territories of the present days states of Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas along with parts of present day Colorado, Nevada and Utah.  The signing of the treaty brought instantly made than 50,000 citizens of Mexico, citizens of the United States. With the signing of the treaty these people were instantly converted from being members of the majority community of Mexico to being members of a despised minority of the United States (Gutirrez, 1995).

The new Americans had to face a lot of discrimination from the English speaking Majority. Especially in Texas, which was a slave owning state, Mexicans being darker of skin were denied full rights and were considered to be somewhere in between African Americans and White Europeans in status (Gutierrez 1995). As Mexican populations grew, they were placed under progressively more and more severe restrictions, the systematic legal and social subjugation of Mexicans turned them from land owning farmers to landless peasants, a source of cheap labor for white farmers. (Gutierrez 1995).
The degree of to which hostility against Mexican Americans had risen can be seen from the  1911 report of the Immigration Commission of the US Congress which comments on Mexican Americans in a most openly racist manner

The Mexican laborers, on the other hand, are notoriously indolent and unprogressive in all matters of education and culture, and evince little desire to learn to speak
English (U.S. Commission on Immigration, 1911).

The fact that only 5.3 per cent of the Mexicans read and write English is due to their consistent lack of ambition in matters of culture (U.S. Commission on Immigration, 1911).

In the second place, only the more recent immigrants and the lowest grade of non assimilable native-born races, like the Mexicans of the American Southwest, are employed (U.S. Commission on Immigration, 1911).

To sum up, the Mexican is a fairly honest, efficient worker, whose usefulness is, however, much impaired by his lack of ambition and his proneness to the constant use of intoxicating liquor (U.S. Commission on Immigration, 1911).

A state of hostility and fear persisted against Mexican Americans and immigrants in general. The government of the time greatly feared retention of language and culture by the immigrants would be a serious threat to the national cohesion of the United States. It was thought that the adoption of English as the first language of the second generation immigrants and the abandonment of original languages was essential to save the countrys future. Many steps were taken to suppress the use of languages other than English (Tatalovich, 1995). The motivation for these action was not only the anti-immigrant fear pervading the country but also the Functionalist school of thought, the proponents of which argued that in order to become fully functional members of the host society, the immigrants must undergo complete social, economic and cultural assimilation into the society (Feldman  Huddy, 2005). The United States congress passed legislation requiring English language fluency for citizenship 1906.During the First World War, the governments anxiety over immigrants speaking their native languages rose to a new height. In the states of Iowa and South Dakota the use of any language other than English in public places or over the phone was banned (Piatt, 1990). In 1919, the state of Nebraska forbade schools from teaching any language other than English prior to ninth grade. The common sentiment regarding immigrants is that upon immigration people should completely abandon their native culture and language and adopt the American English as their primary language (Citrin  Sears, 2001). Particularly in the American South, there exists a great amount of hostility towards the Spanish language with numerous popular efforts to forbid progressive efforts such as the teaching of Spanish in schools and multi-lingual road signs (Tatalovich, 1995). This is often tied in with an anti-immigration stance and the religious hostility against the Catholic Church exhibited by various protestant extremist denominations which see the Catholic Church as The Whore of Babylon mentioned in the bible (Rev. 1716).

In many parts of the United States, Hispanic Americans are likely to face discrimination unless their surnames do not reflect a Hispanic heritage and their physical features and English accent allows them to pass themselves off as Anglos. The functionalist model of immigrant assimilation may have worked for German and Italian immigrants, but it is unlikely to work for most Hispanic immigrants due to their obvious differences in physical features with the majority.

In competition to the functionalist view of immigration, there are also competing models of immigrant assimilation. Many researchers advocate that assimilation be a two-way street with the Spanish language being taught to non-Hispanic children of regions with high Hispanic populations. In 1989, the states of New Mexico, Oregon and Washington passed legislation encouraging the teaching of languages other than English in Public schools (Zavodny, 2000). According to a 2008 study, for 88 of the Elementary Schools that teach a language other than English, that language is Spanish (Centre for Applied Linguistics, 2008).