Originally Posted by Eric5273

The issue at hand here is that a good portion of the western United States used to be part of Mexico. California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and parts of Texas were all originally Mexico. When we won that land in the war, the people who lived there did not get up and leave. Most of them stayed and continued to speak Spanish as they did before.

For some reason, because of all the anti-immigration crap in the media, most Americans think that there are so many Spanish speaking people in that part of the country because of illegal immigrants coming here and refusing to learn our language. It's actually the other way around. We went into their land and brought English to a Spanish speaking place.

I'm glad someone brought up the French speaking people in Quebec/Canada, because it's the same exact thing. The British defeated the French in a war to win that land, and that war actually took place about 85 years earlier than the Mexican/American war. But the people who lived in Quebec were mostly French speaking, and they have continued to speak French until this day, 250 years later.

The reality is that both Spanish and English should be official languages of the United States. And if you think having 2 languages is bad, try moving to a place like China where they have more than a dozen.

And BTW, if you think you would be happy in Europe, think again. Over there most people speak 3 or 4 languages.