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| Spanish in the United States Spanish is the second most common language in the United States, after English, being spoken natively by about 30 million people 5 years and over(or 12% of the population) in 2005 excluding 4.0 million native speakers in Puerto Rico. Today Spanish is so widely spoken in the United States that it is generally considered to be either the third or the fourth largest Spanish-speaking country in the world (after Spain, Mexico, and possibly Argentina) Spanish has a status of official language (along with English) in the state of New Mexico and in Puerto Rico, which is a self-governing unincorporated territory of the United States. The Spanish language has been in North America since the 16th century. In 1513, Ponce de León was the first Spaniard known to have visited North America (specifically Florida). In 1565, the Spaniards founded St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continuously occupied European city in the territory of the United States. The first reading grammar text was written in Spanish in Georgia in 1658. Spanish has been spoken in the country (singularly, in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana) since 1803, when Louisiana was sold to the United States and Spanish settlers in that region, descendants of Canary Islanders, turned into citizens of a new country. After the Mexican-American War (1846–48), nearly half of Mexico was lost to the United States, including parts of the modern-day states of Texas, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming, and the whole of California, Nevada, and Utah. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) made no explicit reference to language rights. California's first constitution approved an important recognition of Spanish language rights: "All laws, decrees, regulations, and provisions emanating from any of the three supreme powers of this State, which from their nature require publication, shall be published in English and Spanish." By 1870, Anglo-Americans had become a majority in California. In 1879, California promulgated a new constitution under which all official proceedings were to be conducted in English; this clause remained in effect until 1966. In 1986, California voters by referendum added a new constitutional clause stating that "English is the official language of the State of California." However, today, Spanish is spoken widely throughout the state, and many government forms, documents, and services are available in both Spanish and English. Both English and Spanish are official languages in New Mexico. Spanish has been spoken around northern New Mexico, southern Colorado and the Mexican border since the 17th century. In Texas, English is conventionally used, but the state has no official language. Texas inherited a large Tejano population from the Mexican American War, in addition to a steady of influx of Mexican, Latino, and other Spanish-speaking immigrants. Some small influence of Spanish was felt in the U.S. during and following the Spanish-American War (also known as the Cuban Insurrection) which brought the first group of Cubans to the United States as visitors. These would travel between the two countries for decades until the Cuban Revolution in 1959 made the exile permanent. With the downfall of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship by Fidel Castro's Marxist-Socialist regime, almost one million Cubans left the island nation, most to settle in lower and central Florida. Puerto Ricans hold U.S. citizenship and Spanish is the first language of Puerto Rico. Many Puerto Ricans have migrated to New York City, New York, adding to the Spanish-speaking population there. More recently, the large scale influx of Hispanic immigrants to the United States has elevated the numbers of Spanish-speakers throughout the country, making them majorities or large minorites in many districts. Having once possessed a small number of educated Spanish-speakers in the Philippines as a result of their colonial history, some of the Filipinos who spoke Spanish may have also brought the language when they emigrated to the United States during the American colonial period up to the era of Ferdinand Marcos's regime. Some critics have referred to the survival of the Spanish language in the USA, especially in the southern areas bordering Mexico, as the "Amexica" effect. This term blends "America" and "Mexico". Similarly, on the East Coast, they speak of "Nuyorican", blending "New York" and "Puerto Rican".
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