this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025
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Ask the Midwest

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Hi fedi,

Non US here, I just read an article about how there are whole cities/neighborhoods that are only spanish speaking in the US, and how lots of places are already using both languages (administrations, hospitals, transports).

Is spanish so widespread in whole US or only is big cities/southern states?

It was an article about how there is no official language in the US and how it would be easier to recognize english and spanish as official languages.

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[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

The US does not have an official language, but it does have English as the traditional default language so everything official from a government source is in English and may also be in another language.

So if there is something officially posted like traffic signs they will be in english and may also have spanish too. There are communities where all the businesses and residents post everything in another language, but someone passing through will see an english version if it is official government posted stuff like traffic signs.

Note: I haven't been literally everywhere in the nation so there might be places that don't have english on local government signage, but I would be pretty surprised.

[–] Death_Equity@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Spanish is the most common in big cities, especially in certain neighborhoods. Along the southern boarder there is a lot of Spanish spoken. Most services have Spanish as an option for things like paperwork and phone services. You don't need to know Spanish, but it can be very helpful depending on where you live or what career you have.

Some facts:

About 13.7% of the population speaks Spanish at home. Spanish is the 2nd most spoken language, infact there are more native speakers of Spanish than all other languages combined. Spanish is the most common second language learned in school.

[–] Banzai51@midwest.social 5 points 1 month ago

There are some areas in the south. But overwhelmingly English is spoken.

It’s only in the more Hispanic areas. Miami for example had a lot of neighborhoods like that. Where my dad lived half my neighbors were Latino and spoke only Spanish, 1/4 were Latino and spoke both, and the rest were black and spoke English. I was the only gringo there.

But where my mom lived was more “upscale” and everyone spoke English and maybe half Spanish. That was predominantly.

Kansas City in the Midwest is mostly white and mostly only English speaking. But there’s parts of KCK that has a lot of Hispanic people and you’ll find some people there who only speak Spanish.

Outside of the city the only people you’ll find that only speak Spanish are the ~~slaves~~ field workers/meat packers.