At first glance, this statement is absurd. In 2016, no fewer than forty million residents spoke Spanish at home. Yet by signalling that only English-speakers counted as true Americans, Trump was appealing to a strain of nativism with deep roots in the past. As Rosina Lozano argues in her fascinating history, there is nothing new in depicting Spanish-speakers as alien intruders. For more than a century, Spanish in the United States has been at times embraced, but more often reviled.

The subtitle of Lozano’s book is somewhat misleading. Readers expecting a detailed analysis of the changing texture and tone of the language as it adapted to an Anglo environment may be disappointed. This is instead a history of Spanish-language politics, beginning with the 1848 signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when the United States took control of formerly Mexican territories in the south-west, and ending with World War II. Focusing on the south-western states and territories, Lozano constructs her narrative at two levels. The swings in official language policies between toleration, hostility, and support is one key theme. But Lozano shows as well how these policy shifts played out within a community that was constantly pulled between rival language worlds.

The first section places at centre stage the group that Lozano refers to as ‘treaty citizens’, the Mexican nationals who were absorbed into the United States after its victory in the Mexican-American War. The conquering government’s stance towards these peoples was surprisingly tolerant. Rather than imposing a language test, the United States granted them citizenship automatically. Furthermore, the treaty citizens were able to wield Spanish as a language of power in their decades-long effort to have their land claims recognised by American courts. Yet the exclusion of Spanish from the structures of government soon began to accelerate. In California, translating official texts into Spanish was for decades viewed as an indispensable part of governing. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, English had become the sole acceptable language of rule, and translation was largely dispensed with.

Lozano’s story comes alive when she moves from the public to the private world, showing how individuals and families negotiated their attachment to Spanish with their sudden immersion in an Anglo world of business and politics. As Lozano notes, treaty citizens were adept at ‘codeswitching between both languages or mixing the two’. The Vallejo family lived in northern California, an area where English was dominant, and quickly took a pragmatic stance. The sons were taught in English, the language of social advancement, to the point where the youngest struggled to write letters to his monolingual mother. Female members of the family, however, were expected to maintain their proficiency in Spanish. For both men and women, Spanish remained the language of faith.

One of the strengths of the book is its attention to regional particularities. Again and again, New Mexico stands out as an exception. There, the dominance of Spanish-speakers made any blunt imposition of English-only policies impossible. Anglophone arrivals quickly adapted to the reality that political and social success depended on mastery of Spanish. But the case of New Mexico threw a spotlight on the informal language barrier to full citizenship of the nation. This became clear when a Congressional committee arrived in the territory in 1902 to assess its demand for statehood. Surveying the prevalence of Spanish, from shop windows to newspapers to daily chatter, the committee members concluded that New Mexico was not fit to enter the nation on full and equal terms. The republic could not digest a territory that sounded so foreign.

Rosina Lozano (photo via Princeton University)The second half of the book sets out the conflicting responses to the influx of Spanish-speaking migrants in the first half of the twentieth century. The fact that Spanish was now cast as a language of immigrants hardened attitudes across the south-west. Schools segregated English and Spanish speakers, while the territory of Arizona passed an English-literacy test designed to disenfranchise its Mexican-born population. Soon, however, conflicting impulses came to the fore. Anxious to improve relations with its hemispheric neighbours, the federal government trumpeted the Spanish-language credentials of its citizens. This favourable stance peaked during World War II. In an effort to bind immigrants to the war effort, government agencies adopted policies aimed at bolstering the Spanish language.

Lozano makes a compelling case that Spanish is deeply embedded in America’s past. But she also highlights the great paradox in the relationship between language and citizenship. The United States is one of only eight nations not to have an official language. Yet English has always been the unstated prerequisite for full membership of the political order. Outside of New Mexico, as she writes, ‘Spanish had little staying power as a language of citizenship’. Might this be changing? Candidates will no doubt continue to burnish their Spanish-language credentials as elections draw near, a process that some have labelled ‘Hispandering’. Yet if history is any guide, the United States is still a long way from accepting Spanish as a truly American language.