Habla Espanol; the Spanish language is becoming part of everyday life in America

0 Comments | Insight on the News, June 24, 2002 | by Joyce Howard Price

From menus to football to politics, the Spanish language is creeping into American culture. Patrons at bank machines in the Washington metropolitan area, for example, routinely are asked whether they want to conduct business in English or Spanish.

It might surprise people to find out the majority of the 300,000 ATMs nationwide are multilingual. "About 90 percent offer Spanish and English" says Les Riedl, senior vice president of Speer & Associates, an Atlanta-based consulting firm focusing primarily on financial services. Many Americans who call credit-card companies to learn their balances find a similar situation.

Nationally, the Hispanic population increased 58 percent between 1990 and 2000, surpassing blacks as the nation's largest minority group, according to the 2000 Census. The data also indicate that more U.S. residents are speaking Spanish at home, and that waves of Hispanics are moving into other states besides New Mexico, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Colorado and Nevada, where their numbers have been greatest.

A Spanish-language broadcast television network, the Los Angeles-based Univision, is the nation's fifth largest--following NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox--but it's only one of three Spanish-language broadcast networks in the nation. Broadcasters, publishers and advertisers are vying for the Hispanic market because it's young, isolated and still untapped.

The growing Latino population in this country has caused some American restaurants, such as fast-food chain Burger King, to provide Spanish-language menus. The National Football League (NFL) also is reaching out to Hispanics. Data from Nielsen Media Research showed that ABC's Monday Night Football was the second-most-watched show in Hispanic homes last year (The Simpsons was first). Commissioner Paul Tagliabue points out that nine NFL teams--Arizona, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Miami, New Orleans, San Diego, Tampa Bay and the New York Jets--already broadcast their games in Spanish on the radio.

What's more, the Republican National Committee (RNC)--eager to capture some of the Hispanic vote--has begun airing a 30-minute Spanish-language television news show in Las Vegas. Other sites selected for the broadcast of the newsmagazine, called Abriendo Caminos (Forging New Paths), are Albuquerque; Denver; Fresno, Calif.; Miami and Orlando, Fla.

"We're determined to fight for the Hispanic vote," says Sharon Castillo, RNC spokeswoman and anchor of Abriendo Caminos. She cites an internal poll showing that 75 percent of Hispanics believe political parties and candidates should talk to them in Spanish. Another finding was that Hispanics view preservation of their native language to be one of the five most important issues in their lives.

English First and U.S. English, which support governments that make English their official language, are incensed when taxpayer dollars are used to promote bilingualism. Both groups are angry about a case involving 16-year-old Zita Wilensky, who was fired by Florida's Miami-Dade County for failing to learn Spanish in 60 days.

"Instead of requiring government workers to be fluent in every possible language, we could encourage people to take English classes," says Jim Boulet Jr., executive director of English First. "But the politically correct crowd won't be satisfied until the Washington Monument is replaced with the Tower of Babel."

JOYCE HOWARD PRICE WRITES FOR Insight's SISTER DAILY, THE WASHINGTON TIMES.