Spanish was first introduced to California in 1542 and has since become deeply entwined with California's cultural landscape and history.[9][10][11] Spanish was the official administrative language in California through theSpanish andMexican periods until 1848, whenAlta California wasceded from Mexico to the United States following the U.S.Conquest of California. Early American governments in California protected the rights of Spanish speakers in the 1849Constitution of California, but those constitutional protections were removed in 1879.[12]
As of 2010, 28.46% (9,696,638) of California residents age 5 and older spokeSpanish at home as aprimary language. California has the second highest concentration of Spanish speakers in the United States. Hispanic students are the largest student demographic in public schools in California, making up the majority of student populations in nearly 40% of school districts.[13] 21% of school students in California speak Spanish as their primary language.[14]
Thename of California has its origin in the Spanish epicLas sergas de Esplandián ("The Adventures of Esplandián"), written byGarci Rodríguez de Montalvo in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.[17] InLas sergas de Esplandián, California is described as being an island kingdom of warrior women ruled by a queen known asCalifia.[18] The name was applied to the modern region ofthe Californias in the 1530s, initially just referring toBaja California (which is today part of Mexico), but later expanded to coverAlta California (today's U.S. state of California).[19]
The spoken history of the Spanish language in California began in 1542, when the first expeditions of theSpanish Empire came to Alta California.[9] While Spanish expeditions continued throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, permanentSpanish colonization was only solidified following thePortolá expedition in 1769–70, which ultimately led to the founding of Spanish settlements across California, such asLos Angeles,San Francisco, andSan Diego. Expedition leaderGaspar de Portolá published his account of the voyage inEstracto de Noticias del Puerto de Monterrey, as did Spanish cartographerMiguel Costansó in hisDiario Histórico de los Viages de Mar, y Tierra Hechos al Norte de la California, both published in 1770.
The creation of theSpanish missions in California led to the spread of the Spanish language into the lives of theIndigenous peoples of California which resided in the mission system.Franciscan missionaries served an important role in the proliferation of Spanish across communities in California, both through missionary-run education and through publishings of Franciscan padres, such asFrancisco Palóu, who wrote various histories and essays on California, including his seminalNoticias de la Nueva California, written from 1767 to 1784.
The first book published in California:"Manifesto a la República Mejicana" byJosé Figueroa (1835).
In 1834,Agustín V. Zamorano became the first publisher in the history of California, opening aprint shop inMonterey, mainly serving as the official press of the Mexican government in California. In 1835, Zamorano published the first book in the history of California,"Manifesto a la República Mejicana", written by GovernorJosé Figueroa.
Previous literary pieces had been written in California, but had to be published elsewhere, such asCarlos Antonio Carrillo's 1831"Exposición dirigida á la Cámara de Diputados del Congreso de la Unión". During the Mexican era, a number of the American and European immigrants settled in Alta California and acquired Mexican citizenship, in order to own land, often under the requirement that they learn to speak Spanish.[20]
Following theU.S. Conquest of California in 1847, the rights of Spanish speakers were initially guaranteed by the Americaninterim government of California. The firstConstitution of California, written in 1849 in both English and Spanish, guaranteed the official status of Spanish alongside English in government regulations and publications.[21] One of the first acts of the firstCalifornia Legislature of 1850 was to appoint a State Translator, who would be responsible for translating all state laws, decrees, documents, and orders into Spanish.[22][23]
While Spanish initially continued to be used in schools and government following theMexican Cession in 1848, theAnglophone American settlers migratingen masse to California during theCalifornia Gold Rush would eventually establish their language, culture, and law as dominant, displacing Spanish in thepublic sphere.[24] By 1855, California declared that English would be the onlymedium of instruction in its schools, as a way of ensuring the social and political dominance of Anglos.[25]
By the time California's second constitutional convention was convened in 1872, judicial proceedings in Hispanic majority areas of California were carried out in Spanish, and those areas had justices of the peace appointed who only spoke Spanish.[26] The 1872 constitutional convention had no Spanish-speaking participants (compared to a significant portion of the 1849 convention) and ultimately voted 46–39 to revise the earlier clause so that all official proceedings would henceforth be published only in English.[21]
Coinciding with the 1872 constitution's ratification and the rise of the nativistWorkingmen's Party of California, Hispanic children throughout California started to be segregated into separate educational facilities known as "Mexican schools".[27][26] Despite the displacement of Spanish from the public sphere, most of California continued to be home to Spanish-speaking communities through the 19th and 20th centuries into the modern day.[28]
Bilingual sign where English and Spanish are displayed equally in size and font; theColorado Desert inSouthern California.Bilingual sign where English is displayed more prominently than Spanish, in theSan Joaquin Valley
Spanish was the official administrative language of California through the Spanish and Mexican eras, until 1848. Following the U.S.Conquest of California and theTreaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, the U.S. Government initially guaranteed the rights of the Spanish-speaking citizens in theMexican Cession.
The firstConstitution of California (1849) was written in both English and Spanish at theMonterey Constitutional Convention of 1849 and it enshrined the constitutional rights of Spanish speakers to use their language in government proceedings and mandated that all government documents be published in both English and Spanish.[29]
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, the English-speaking American population had become the majority in California. The revised 1879 constitution stripped the rights of Spanish speakers and the official status of Spanish.[30] Under the new constitution, all official proceedings were to be conducted exclusively in English, a clause that remained in effect until 1966.
The growth of theEnglish-only movement in the 20th century led to the passage of1986 California Proposition 63, which constitutionally enshrined English as the only official language in California and ended Spanish language instruction in schools.[31]
English is the official language of the State of California.
— Constitution of California, Art. 3, Sec. 6
Thegovernment of California has made efforts to expand its Spanish language capacity across a variety of agencies.[32] Spanish is widely spoken through the state and many local governments and special districts offer services and publications in both English and Spanish.
The city ofCoachella is officially bilingual in English and Spanish, both in government publications and city council proceedings,[34] with 90% of residents speaking Spanish.[36] The city ofCalexico is exploring becoming officially bilingual in English and Spanish.[37]
Thecity of San Francisco recognizes Spanish as one of its official languages, alongside English, Chinese, Filipino, and Vietnamese.[38]
Thecity of Los Angeles mandates that allLos Angeles City Council meetings be served by a Spanish language interpreter.[39] LA council members regularly hold bilingual English/Spanishpress conferences and often participate in Spanishlanguage immersion courses in order to communicate directly with the high number of Spanish-speaking constituents.[39][40] TheLos Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) requires that "high quality and inclusive community engagement must be conducted in English and Spanish",[41] while the LA Department of City Planning requires all city planning materials to be published in both English and Spanish.[42]
Bilingual English/SpanishOrange County public health notice.
TheSan Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) mandates all public meetings must be staffed with bilingual English/Spanish staff, including English/Spanish court reporters, interpreters, and publications.[72] SANDAG also mandates all regional surveys be conducted in both English and Spanish.[72]
The California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training has set standards for all law enforcement officers in California to meet a minimum fluency level in Spanish.[73]
El Clamor Público was a Spanish languagenewspaper founded in 1855.Romualdo Tirado'sDe México a Los Ángeles (1929), performed at the Teatro México in Los Angeles
Since theCOVID-19 pandemic, Spanish language media has faced a crisis in California, with many local newspapers and radio stations closing and owners of Spanish newspapers shifting their resources towards English publications.[78]
TheLos Angeles Star/Estrella de Los Ángeles was the firstnewspaper in Southern California, publishing in Los Angeles in both Spanish and English, from 1851 to 1879.El Clamor Público was another Spanish language newspaper published out of Los Angeles from 1855 to 1859.La Sociedad was based inSan Francisco, published in Spanish from 1869 to 1895.[89]
In some cases, 19th century Mexican newspapers, such asLa Orquesta, published Californian editions alongside their primary Mexican editions.
Escuela Popular, a Spanish-Englishdual immersion school inSan Jose, established in 1986.
2016 California Proposition 58 reversed the prohibition onbilingual education, but many barriers to the proliferation of Spanish bilingual education still exist, including a shortage of teachers and lack of funding.[90][31][91] Thegovernment of California has since made efforts to promote Spanish language access and bilingual education,[92][93] as have private educational institutions in California.[94]
Many businesses in California promote the usage of Spanish by their employees, to better serve both California's Hispanic population and the largerSpanish-speaking world.[112][113] California has legal protections against Spanish language discrimination in the workplace.[114]
The Spanish ofSouthern California exhibitsmorphosyntactic traits that are characterized by Spanish morphological structures that are applied to borrowed words and syntactic structures.[116]
Los Angeles Vernacular Spanish (español vernáculo de Los Angeles), abbreviated asLAVS, is a Southern Californian variety originating in theGreater Los Angeles area, which is primarily based in rural accents ofMexican Spanish, though with unique traits of its own.[117][118] Characteristics of LAVS include:[117][118]
Bay Area Spanish (español del Área de la Bahía) is a Northern Californian variety originating in theBay Area.[119][120] Also based inMexican Spanish dialects, and notably influenced byChicano English, Bay Area Spanish is noted for its features resulting from theCalifornia Vowel Shift, most notable having a more compressedvowel space than other Mexican Spanish dialects, owing to the high degree of Spanish-English bilingualism in the Bay Area, which has resulted in speakers transferringarticulatory phonetics from one language to another, producing a similar modulation of the vowel space in both Spanish and English.[119][120]
Californio Spanish (español californio) is a historic variety spoken by earlyCalifornios throughout the Spanish, Mexican and early American eras ofCalifornian history.[117][6][7][8]
^abGuadalupe Valdés et al.,Developing Minority Language Resources: The Case of Spanish in California (Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2006), 28–29.
^Martin, Daniel W. (2006).Henke's California Law Guide (8th ed.). Newark: Matthew Bender & Co. pp. 45–46.ISBN08205-7595-X.
^Lozano, Rosina (2018).An American language : the history of Spanish in the United States. Oakland, California.ISBN978-0-520-29706-7.OCLC1005690403.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Garcia, Ofelia (2015). "Racializing the Language Practices of U.S. Latinos: Impact on Their Education". In Cobas, Jose; Duany, Jorge; Feagin, Joe (eds.).How the United States Racializes Latinos. Routledge. pp. 102–105.
^Cárdenas, Daniel N. (1982). "Morphosyntactic preferences in the Spanish of Southern California".Word.33 (1–2):29–40.doi:10.1080/00437956.1982.11435720.
^abParodi, Claudia; Guerrero, Armando (May 2016). "Los Angeles Vernacular Spanish: An analytical approach to its indicators, markers, and stereotypes".Spanish Language and Sociolinguistic Analysis. John Benjamins. pp. 89–108. Retrieved8 September 2023.
^abDavidson, Justin (2016). "Corpus of Bay Area Spanish".University of California, Berkeley - Department of Spanish & Portuguese.
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