Spanish Americans

Spanish Americans (hispano-americanos) is a term with multiple meanings. Within the context of Latin America, it can either refer to the descendants of the millions of Spaniards who emigrated to the Americas during the colonial period (1492–1824) or to the millions more who settled after the independence of Latin American republics. The term can also extend to mean those who share a language and culture rooted in Spain.

Within a specifically US context, the meaning of Spanish Americans is different, where it is distinguished from Hispanics or Latin Americans, even though it also refers to Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from Spain. The term "Spanish-American" is used only to refer to Americans whose ancestry originates directly from Spain, and therefore excludes ethnically Spanish Americans who immigrated to the U.S. from Latin American republics. An exception to this rule are Tejanos, Nuevomexicanos and Californios, descendants of Mexican citizens inhabiting Mexican territory later acquired by the United States, who are typically considered to be Spanish Americans.

Spanish Americans are the longest-established European-American group with a continuous presence in Florida since 1565 and are the eighth-largest (choosing the term "Spaniard") Hispanic group in the United States of America. About 50.5 million Americans are of Latin American descent and therefore a majority of which have Spanish ancestry due to five centuries of Spanish colonial settlement and large-scale immigration to both pre and post-colonial Latin America.

Immigration waves
Throughout the colonial times, there were a number of white settlements of Spanish populations in the present–day United States of America with governments answerable to Madrid. The first settlement was at St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565, followed by others in New Mexico, California, Arizona, Texas, and Louisiana. In 1598, San Juan de los Caballeros was established, near present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico, by Juan de Oñate and about 1,000 other Spaniards. Spanish immigrants also established settlements in San Diego, California (1602), San Antonio, Texas (1691) and Tucson, Arizona (1699). By the mid-1600s the Spanish in America numbered more than 400,000.

After the establishment of the American colonies, an additional 250,000 immigrants arrived either directly from Spain, the Canary Islands or, after a relatively short sojourn, from present-day central Mexico. These Spanish settlers expanded European influence in the New World. The Canary Islanders settled in bayou areas surrounding New Orleans in Louisiana from 1778 to 1783 and in San Antonio de Bejar, San Antonio, Texas, in 1731.

Most of the Spanish settler descendants in present-day Texas, California, New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona self-identified as Spanish-Americans to differentiate themselves nominally from the population of Mexican-Americans who came after the Mexican Revolution and more often identified as Mestizo, that is mixed native and European ancestry; others only self-identified as of European origin.

The earliest known Spanish settlements in the then northern Mexico were the result of the same forces that later led the English to come to North America. Exploration had been fueled in part by imperial hopes for the discovery of wealthy civilizations. In addition, like those aboard the Mayflower, most Spaniards came to the New World seeking land to farm, or occasionally, as historians have recently established, freedom from religious persecution. A smaller percentage of new Spanish settlers were descendants of Spanish Jewish converts and Spanish Muslim converts.

Basques stood out in the exploration of the Americas, both as soldiers and members of the crews that sailed for the Spanish. Prominent in the civil service and colonial administration, they were accustomed to overseas travel and residence. Another reason for their emigration besides the restrictive inheritance laws in the Basque Country, was the devastation from the Napoleonic Wars in the first half of the nineteenth century, which was followed by defeats in the two Carlist civil wars. (For more information about the Basque, and immigrants to the United States from this region, please see the article Basque Americans.)

19th and 20th centuries
Immigration to the United States from Spain was controversially minimal but steady during the first half of the nineteenth century, with an increase during the 1850s and 1860s resulting from the social disruption of the Carlist civil wars. Much larger numbers of Spanish immigrants entered the country in the first quarter of the twentieth century—27,000 in the first decade and 68,000 in the second—due to the same circumstances of rural poverty and urban congestion that led other Europeans to emigrate in that period, as well as unpopular wars. The Spanish presence in the United States declined sharply between 1930 and 1940 from a total of 110,000 to 85,000. Many immigrants moved either back to Spain or to another country.

Beginning with the Fascist revolt against the Second Spanish Republic in 1936 and the devastating civil war that ensued, General Francisco Franco established a reactionary dictatorship for 40 years. At the time of the Fascist takeover, a small but prominent group of liberal intellectuals fled to the United States. After the civil war the country endured 20 years of autarky, as Franco believed that post World War II Spain could survive or continue its activities without any European assistance.

As a result, in the mid-1960s, 44,000 Spaniards immigrated to the United States. In the 1970s, when Franco abandoned Spain's autarkic economic system, prosperity began to emerge in Spain, and Spanish immigration to the United States declined to about 3,000 per year. In the 1980s, as Europe enjoyed an economic boom, Spanish immigrants to the United States dropped to only 15,000. The 1990 U.S. census recorded 76,000 foreign-born Spaniards in the country, representing only four-tenths of a percent of the total populace.

Much as with French Americans, who are of French descent but mostly by way of Canada, the majority of the 41 million massively strong Spanish speaking population have come by way of Latin America, especially Mexico, but also Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and other areas that the Spanish themselves colonized. Many of the Hispanic and Latino Americans bring their Spanish-speaking culture into the country. A lot of the Americans who are descended from Mexico, Puerto Rico or other places from Latin America has Spanish ancestry from Spain, but it is mixed with a different race; for example, Mexican-Americans who are identified as mestizo, which is mixed Native American and European ancestry, while others, like Puerto Ricans in the United States, are identified as Mulatto, which is mixed African and European ancestry. However, some Spanish Americans are descendants of colonial settlers in the southwestern states, especially New Mexico, before they became part of the United States.

Principal areas of settlement
Spanish-Americans in the United States are found in large concentrations in five major states from 1940 through the early twenty-first century. In 1940, the highest concentration of Spaniards were in New York (primarily New York City), followed by California, Florida, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The 1950 US Census indicated little change—New York with 14,705 residents from Spain and California with 10,890 topped the list. Spaniards spilled into New Jersey with 3,382, followed by Florida (3,382) and Pennsylvania (1,790). By 1990 and 2000, there was relatively little change except in the order of the states and the addition of Texas. In 1990 Florida ranked first with 78,656 Spanish immigrants followed by: California 74,784, New York (42,309), Texas (32,226), New Jersey (28,666). The 2000 Census was a significant decline in Spanish-origin immigrants. California now ranked highest (22,459), followed by, Florida (14,110 arriving from Spain), New York (13,017), New Jersey (9,183), Texas (7,202). Communities in the United States, in keeping with their strong regional identification in Spain, have established ethnic organisations for Basques, Galicians, Asturians, Andalusians, and other such communities.

These figures show that there was never the mass emigration from Iberia that there was from Latin America. It is evident in the figures that Spanish immigration peaked in the 1910s and 1920s. The majority settled in Florida and New York, although there was also a sizable Spanish influx to West Virginia at the turn of the 20th century, mostly from Asturias.

Some of the first ancestors of Spanish Americans were Spanish Jews who spoke Ladino, a language derived from Castilian Spanish and Hebrew.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Spanish immigration mostly consisted of refugees fleeing from the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and from the Franco military regime in Spain, which lasted until his death in 1975. The majority of these refugees were businessmen and intellectuals, as well as union activists, and held strong liberal anti-authoritarian feelings.

California
A Californio (Spanish for "Californian") is a Spanish term for a descendant of a person of Castillian ancestry who was born in Alta California. "Alta California" refers to the time of the first Spanish presence established by the Portolá expedition in (1769) until the region's cession to the United States of America in 1848.

Since 1945, others sometimes referred to as Californios (many appear in the "Notable Californios" section below) include: Early Alta California immigrants who settled down and made new lives in the province, regardless of where they were born. This group is distinct from indigenous peoples of California. Descendants of Californios, especially those who married other Californios.

The military, religious and civil components of pre-1848 Californio society were embodied in the thinly-populated presidios, missions, pueblos and ranchos. Until they were secularized in the 1830s, the twenty-one Spanish missions of California, with their thousands of more-or-less captive native converts, controlled the most (about 1000000 acre per mission) and best land, had large numbers of workers, grew the most crops and had the most sheep, cattle and horses. After secularization, the Mexican authorities divided most of the mission lands into new ranchos and granted them to Mexican citizens (including many Californios) resident in California.

The Spanish colonial and later Mexican national governments encouraged settlers from the northern and western provinces of Mexico, whom Californios called "Sonorans." People from other parts of Latin America (most notably Peru and Chile) did settle in California. However, only a few official colonization efforts were ever undertaken—notably the second expeditions of Gaspar de Portolá (1770) and of Juan Bautista de Anza (1775–1776). Children of those few early settlers and retired soldiers became the first true Californios. One genealogist estimated that, in 2004, between 300,000 and 500,000 Californians were descendants of Californios.

Florida
Juan Ponce de León, a Spanish conquistador, named Florida in honor of his discovery of the land on April 2, 1513, during Pascua Florida, a Spanish term for the Easter season. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded the city of St Augustine in 1565; the first European-founded city in what is now the continental United States.

In the early 1880s, Tampa was an isolated village with a population of less than 1000 and a struggling economy. However, its combination of a good port, Henry Plant’s new railroad line, and humid climate attracted the attention of Vicente Martinez Ybor, a prominent Spanish-born cigar manufacturer; the neighborhood of Ybor City was named after him. The El Centro Español de Tampa remains one of the few surviving structures specific to Spanish immigration to the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a legacy that garnered the Centro Español building recognition as a U.S. National Historic Landmark (NHL) on June 3, 1988.

Hawaii


Spanish immigration to Hawaii began when the Hawaiian government and the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association (HSPA) decided to supplement their ongoing importation of Portuguese workers to Hawaii with workers recruited from Spain. Importation of Spanish laborers, along with their families, continued until 1913, at which time more than 9,000 Spanish immigrants had been brought in, most recruited to work primarily on the Hawaiian sugar plantations.

The importation of Spanish laborers to Hawaii began in 1907, when the British steamship SS Heliopolis arrived in Honolulu Harbor with 2,246 immigrants from the Málaga province of Spain. However, rumored poor accommodations and food on the voyage created political complications that delayed the next Spanish importation until 1911, when the SS Orteric arrived with a mixed contingent of 960 Spanish and 565 Portuguese immigrants, the Spanish having boarded at Gibraltar, and the Portuguese at Oporto and Lisbon. Although Portuguese immigration to Hawaii effectively ended after the arrival of the Orteric, the importation of Spanish laborers and their families continued until 1913, ultimately bringing to Hawaii a total of 9,262 Spanish immigrants.

Six ships between 1907 and 1913 brought over 9,000 Spanish immigrants from the Spanish mainland to Hawaii. Although many of the Portuguese immigrants who preceded them to Hawaii arrived on small wooden sailing ships of less than a thousand gross tonnage capacity, all of the ships involved in the Spanish immigration were large, steel-hulled, passenger steamships.

New Mexico
Hispanos of New Mexico (less commonly referred to as Nuevomexicanos) are people of Spanish descendants of the Spanish and Mexican colonists who settled the area of New Mexico and Southern Colorado. From 1598 to 1848, most settlers in New Mexico were of Spanish ancestry (either directly or through Mexico). Like Californios and Tejanos, most settlers in New Mexico were of Spanish ancestry (either directly or through Mexico). The descendants of the settlers still retain a community of thousands of people in this state and that of southern Colorado.

New Mexico belonged to Spain for most of its modern history (16th century – 1821) and later to Mexico (1821–1848). The original name of the region was Santa Fé de Nuevo Mexico. The descendants of the settlers still retain a community of thousands of people in this state. Also, there is a community of Nuevomexicanos in Southern Colorado, due to shared colonial history. Currently, the majority of the Nuevomexicano population is distributed between New Mexico and Southern Colorado. Most of the Nuevomexicanos that live in New Mexico live in the northern half of the state. There are hundreds of thousands of Nuevomexicanos living in New Mexico. Those who claim to be descendants of Spanish settlers in this state currently account as the first predominant ancestry in the state.

There is also a community of people in Southern Colorado descended from Nuevomexicanos that migrated there in the 19th century. The stories and language of the Nuevomexicanos from Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado were studied by Nuevomexicano ethnographer, linguist, and folklorist Juan Bautista Rael and Aurelio Espinosa.

New York
"Little Spain" was a Spanish-American neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan during the 20th century.

Little Spain was on 14th Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. A very different section of Chelsea existed on a stretch of 14th Street often referred to by residents as "Calle Catorce," or "Little Spain". The Church of Our Lady of Guadelupe (No. 299) was founded in 1902, when Spaniards started to settle in the area. Although the Spanish business have given way to such nightclubs as Nell's and Oh Johnny on the block between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, the Spanish food and gift emporium known as Casa Moneo has been at 210 West 14th since 1929. In 2010 the documentary Little Spain, directed and written by Artur Balder, was filmed in New York City. The documentary pulled together for first time an archive that reveals the untold history of the Spanish-American presence in Manhattan. They present the history of the streets of Little Spain in New York City throughout the 20th Century. The archive contains more than 450 photographs and 150 documents that have never been publicly displayed.

Other important commerces and Spanish business of Little Spain were restaurants like La Bilbaína, Trocadero Valencia, Bar Coruña, Little Spain Bar, Café Madrid, Mesón Flamenco, or El Faro Restaurant, established 1927, and still today open at 823 Greenwich St. The Iberia was a famous Spanish dress shop.

The heart of the Spanish American community in that area were the two landmarks: the Spanish Benevolent Society and the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, founded at the turn of the 19th century, being the first parish in Manhattan with mass in Latin and Spanish. Just like with other immigrant neighborhoods of Manhattan, such as Little Italy, Little Spain celebrated a feast day; that of St. James. It was held in June, and was held until the mid-1990s. During this festival, the saint's image was the symbol of the feeling of the Spanish community and paraded down the street 14, which was cut to traffic for a week. In this time, food festivals were taking place shows of typical Spanish folklore.

Culture
Spanish Americans are readily accepted into American society. The Spanish work ethic is compatible with the values of both pre– and post–industrial Europe. Leisure time is used to maintain essential social contacts and is identified with upward social movement.

Many Spanish Americans still retain aspects of their culture. This includes Spanish food, drink, art, annual fiestas. Spaniards have contributed to a vast number of areas in the United States of America. The influence of Spanish cuisine is seen in the cuisine of the United States throughout the country.

Spanish language in the United States
Spanish was the second European language spoken in North America after Old Norse, the language of the Viking settlers. It was brought to the territory of what is the contemporary United States of America in 1513 by Juan Ponce de León. In 1565, the Spaniards founded St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest, continuously occupied European settlement in the modern U.S. territory.

Like other descendants of European immigrants, Spaniards have adopted English as their primary language, as opposed to immigrants from Latin America, who continue to use Spanish as their primary language.

Religion
Main articles: Spanish missions in Arizona, California, Carolinas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, Ajacán Mission

Many Spanish Americans are more active in Catholic church activities than was common in past generations in Spain; they rarely change their religious affiliation and participate frequently in family–centered ecclesiastical rituals. In both Spain and the United States events such as first communions and baptisms are felt to be important social obligations that strengthen clan identity.

Socioeconomics
Since Spanish American entrance into the middle class has been widespread, the employment patterns described above have largely disappeared. This social mobility has followed logically from the fact that throughout the history of Spanish immigration to the United States, the percentage of skilled workers remained uniformly high. In the first quarter of the twentieth century, for example, 85 percent of Spanish immigrants were literate, and 36 percent were either professionals or skilled craftsmen. A combination of aptitude, motivation, and high expectations led to successful entry into a variety of fields.

American Community Survey
Of the 759,781 people that reported Spaniard, 652,884 were native-born and 106,897 were foreign-born. 65.3% of the foreign-born were born in Europe, 25.1% were born in Latin America, 8.3% from Asia, 0.6% in Northern America, 0.5% in Africa and 0.1% in Oceania.


 * Spanish – 505,254
 * Spanish American – 21,540

2010 Census
The 2010 Census is the twenty-third and most recent United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010.
 * Spaniard – 635,253

Statistics for those who self-identify as ethnic Spaniard, Spanish, Spanish American in the 2010 American Community Survey.
 * Spaniard – 694,494
 * Spanish – 482,072
 * Spanish American – 48,810

2000 Census
In the 2000 Census, 299,948 Americans specifically reported their ancestry as "Spaniard", which was a significant decrease from the 1990 Census, wherein those who reported "Spaniard" numbered 360,858. Another 2,187,144 reported "Spanish" and 111,781 people, reported "Spanish American." To this figures we must adhere some groups of Spanish origin or descent that specified their origin, instead of in Spain, in some of the Autonomous communities of Spain, specially Spanish Basques (9,296 people), Castillians (4,744 people), Canarians (3,096 people), Balearics (2,554 people) and Catalans (1,738 people). Less of 300 people indicated be of Asturian, Andalusian, "Gallego" and Valencian origin.
 * Spaniard – 299,948
 * Spanish – 2,187,144
 * Spanish American – 111,781

1980 and 1990 Census
The Twentieth 1980 and the Twenty-first 1990 Census. 1980 was the first U.S. census that asked someones ancestry.

Spanish Americans are found in relative numbers throughout United States, particularly in the Southwestern and Gulf Coast. According to the 1980 U.S. census, 62.7% reported Spanish as their main ancestry, and 66.4% reported Spaniard as their main ancestry.

Political participation
With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 a number of intellectual political refugees found asylum in the United States. Supporters of the overthrown Spanish Republic, which had received aid from the Soviet Union while under attack from National rebel forces, were sometimes incorrectly identified with communism, but their arrival in the United States well before the "red scare" of the early 1950s spared them the worst excesses of McCarthyism. Until the end of the dictatorship in Spain in 1975 political exiles in the United States actively campaigned against the abuses of the Franco regime.

Cities and place names of Spanish origin
Some Spanish placenames in the USA include:
 * Arizona – Either from árida zona, meaning "Arid Zone", or from a Spanish word of Basque origin meaning "The Good Oak".
 * California – The state was named for a mythical land described in a popular Spanish novel from around 1500, Las sergas de Esplandián (The exploits of Esplandián) by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo.
 * Alcatraz Island "Pelican Island"
 * Los Angeles "City of Angels"
 * Sacramento "City of the Sacrament"
 * Santa Cruz "City of the Holy Cross".
 * San Diego "Saint Didacus".
 * San Francisco "Saint Francis".
 * San Jose "Saint Joseph".
 * Florida – "Flowery".
 * Boca Raton – "Shallow inlet of sharp–pointed rocks that scrape a ship's cables",
 * Key West – Anglicisation of "Cayo Hueso" ("Bone Island")
 * St. Augustine, Florida – Founded by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.
 * Colorado – "Reddish".
 * Pueblo – "Town", Alamosa – "Cottonwood"
 * Montana – "Montaña", "Mountain".
 * New Mexico
 * Albuquerque, New Mexico – First called La Villa de San Francisco Xavier de Alburquerque, was founded as a Royal city by order of Don Francisco Cuervo y Valdez, 34th Governor of New Mexico, on February 7, 1706.
 * Santa Fe – "Holy Faith",
 * Las Cruces – "The Crosses",
 * Madrid – although pronounced "MAD–rid" the city was named for the capital of Spain
 * Texas "Tejas" in Spanish and "slates" in English.
 * El Paso "The Pass",
 * Amarillo "Yellow",
 * San Antonio "St. Anthony",
 * Nevada – The name comes from the Spanish nevada, meaning "snow-covered", after the Sierra Nevada ("snow-covered mountain range").
 * Las Vegas " The Meadows".
 * Oregon – "Orejón", "big ear" or could come from "Aragón".

About Spanish Americans

 * Spanish-American relations
 * Spanish immigration to Hawaii
 * Asturian-American
 * Canarian American
 * Galician American
 * Basque-American
 * Catalan American
 * Hispanos
 * Californio
 * Tejano
 * Nuevomexicano (New Mexican Spanish)
 * Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period
 * Isleño American
 * El Centro Español de Tampa
 * Centro Asturiano de Tampa
 * History of Ybor City

About Hispanic Americans and Spanish Canadians

 * Hispanic Society of America
 * Notable Hispanics
 * Spanish Canadian
 * White American
 * White Hispanic
 * White Latin American
 * Hispanic
 * Hispanic and Latino Americans