Hispanidad

History

At the beginning of the 20th century, Hispanidad was moribund. Zacarías de Vizarra, Faustino Rodríguez-San Pedro and Ramiro de Maeztu revived interest in the concept in Spain and the Americas, changing its name to Día de la Raza or "Day of the Race". This was already a national celebration in many Hispanic countries, in honor of the meeting of Europeans and Amerindians, their mixing and the emergence of the mestizo race. Shortly thereafter, the first pan-Hispanic organizations such as the Association of Spanish Language Academies began. With the restoration of democracy in Spain, all the Hispanic nations began to converge with, for example, the creation of the Ibero-American Summit in 1991. Since then, the number of Hispanic American and Filipino hispanism (Filhispanismo) organizations has increased.

Currently, Hispanidad is a cooperative venture. Spain has created a base of support for Hispanic America and the Philippines due to heavy investments in these zones. Some Hispanic Americans choose to immigrate to Spain, because of its cultural, linguistic and ancestral affinity.

Hispanic countries

^a Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the U.S. where Spanish and English are the official languages and Spanish is the primary language.

In November 2008 a district court judge ruled that a sequence of Congressional actions have had the cumulative effect of changing Puerto Rico's status to incorporated. However, by April 2011 the issue had not yet made its way through the courts, and in January 2013 the U.S. government still referred to Puerto Rico as unincorporated.

Largest Hispanic cities

The following is a list of the ten largest metropolitan areas in the Hispanic world.

Spanish in the Hispanic world

Most Spanish speakers are in Hispanic America; of all countries with a majority of Spanish speakers, only Spain, the Philippines, and Equatorial Guinea are outside the Americas. Spanish is the official national language of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

In Europe, Spanish is the official national language of Spain, the country after which it is named and from which it originated. It is also spoken in Andorra, and by a minority of the population in Portugal, France, and the United Kingdom.

In Asia, the Philippines, a former Spanish overseas province, is the lone sovereign nation representative of the Spanish language. Spanish was lingua franca of the country from the beginning of Spanish rule in the late 1500s until the first half of the 20th century. It held official status for nearly half a millennium before being demoted as an optional language in 1987. However, Spanish still remained a very important language in the Philippines despite all the inauspicious circumstances that resulted to its gradual decline over the years. Today, Spanish is being somewhat revived by groups rallying to make it a compulsory subject in schools, and eventually be redesignated as an official language on national level.

Spanish elsewhere in the Americas

Spanish is spoken in other parts of the Americas as a co-official language, second language, or a minority language. The importance of the Spanish language throughout the Americas, has spread the use of Spanish beyond the borders of Hispanic countries.

Spanish has no official recognition in the former British colony of Belize; however, per the 2000 census, it is spoken by 46% of the population. Due to their proximity to Spanish-speaking countries, Trinidad and Tobago and Brazil have implemented Spanish language teaching into their education systems. The Trinidad government launched the Spanish as a First Foreign Language (SAFFL) initiative in March 2005. In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the President, making it mandatory for schools to offer Spanish as an alternative foreign language course in both public and private secondary schools in Brazil. In many border towns and villages (especially in the Uruguayan-Brazilian and Paraguayan-Brazilian border areas), a mixed language known as Portuñol is spoken.

Spanish in the United States

According to 2006 census data, 44.3 million people of the U.S. population were Hispanic or Hispanic American by origin; 38.3 million people, 13 percent, of the population over five years old speak Spanish at home. The Spanish language has a long history and presence in the United States due to historic Spanish and later, Mexican administration over territories now forming the southwestern states as well as Florida, which was Spanish territory until 1821.

Spanish is by far the most common second language spoken and taught in the country, and with over 50 million total speakers, the United States is now the second largest Spanish-speaking country in the world after Mexico. Spanish is spoken by 10.7% of the population. While English is the de facto official language of the country, Spanish is often used in public services and notices at the federal and state levels. Spanish is also used in administration in the state of New Mexico. The language also has a strong influence in major metropolitan areas such as those of Los Angeles, Miami, San Antonio, New York, San Francisco, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Phoenix; as well as more recently, Chicago, Las Vegas, Boston, Houston, and Baltimore-Washington, D.C. due to 20th and 21st century immigration.

Major influence

Spanish, as a mother tongue, is spoken by more than 390 million people (second only to Chinese). The total number of Spanish speakers is more than 500 million people. Mexico contains the largest number of Spanish speakers, with over 100 million.

Europe

In Europe, Hispanics reside primarily in Spain as it is the origin of Hispanicity, although there are small communities spread throughout Europe. The native-born population is more than 44 million, plus a large immigrant Hispanic community from Hispanic America and Equatorial Guinea.

Americas

The majority of Hispanics live in Hispanic America, coinciding with recognized international borders—the number surpasses 300 million. Countries with great majority Hispanic population include Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Uruguay and Venezuela.

The United States and Belize, while not officially counted as Hispanic nations, do each have a large Hispanic population. The United States has more than 50 million Hispanic residents. With 10.7% its total population speaking Spanish, Spanish-language TV networks and other media companies are located across the United States. Additionally, Puerto Rico is a commonwealth in free association with the United States and its residents are American citizens. 46% of Belizeans can speak Spanish.

Africa

Hispanics in the African continent are concentrated in overseas territories of Spain, which are the Canary Islands, Ceuta, Melilla and largely unpopulated Plazas de soberanía. Moreover, Equatorial Guinea has Spanish as its official government language, although Portuguese and French are also official languages of this tiny nation, and the people speak their respective native languages. In Morocco and Western Sahara, some people maintain Hispanic characteristics, although these countries are more so influenced by Arab and Berber languages and cultures. In Angola and Nigeria there are small populations of Spanish speakers who descend from repatriated Afro-Cubans of the colonial era. Altogether in Africa, two million speak Spanish.

Asia

Some countries in the Asia-Pacific region collectively known as the Spanish East Indies received influence from the Hispanic world while they were governed by the Spanish Crown via Madrid, Mexico City and Manila, the Philippines. The Philippines, received influence from Spain and Mexico and was a Spanish stronghold for more than three centuries (333 years). Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia are regional polities that received influence from the Captaincy General of the Philippines in Manila.

In the Philippines, a Spanish Filipino is a Filipino who has Spanish or Hispanic lineage and descent, mostly born and raised in the Philippines. From 1565 to 1987 Spanish was an official language in the Philippines. The number of Spanish speakers among Filipinos is rapidly growing due to the huge demand for Spanish speakers within the Business Process Outsourcing and Call centre sectors. For now, Philippine Spanish is natively spoken by some 5,000 people, with around 500,000 to 1,000,000 second- or third-language speakers alongside English, Filipino, and/or any of the various Philippine languages. These primary and non-primary Spanish speakers are mostly concentrated in Metro Manila, Zamboanga, Cebú, Cavite, Iloílo, Bauang, and Dávao.

In addition, there are 600,000 native speakers of Chavacano, a Spanish-based creole centred on Zamboanga City.

Interestingly in 1973, President Ferdinand Marcos stripped Spanish of its official status and yet restored it immediately afterwards. Along with Arabic, Spanish is mentioned in the presently-enforced 1987 Constitution as a language "promoted on a voluntary and optional basis".

In contrast with the rest of the Hispanic world, the prevalence of Spanish given names and surnames among Filipinos does not necessarily reflect Spanish descent. This phenomenon stems from the 1849 decree of Governor-General Narciso Clavería y Zaldúa that mandated a unified naming standard based on Hispanic conventions. Aided by an official list of surnames, the systematic distribution of surnames was enforced in the Spanish East Indies to streamline data recording and government functions such as taxation.