THE USA’S HISPANIC HERITAGE

Arcade in Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Miami, Florida. Photo by Leah Kelley from Pexels.

Forgotten Hispanic History in North American Territory

  • The exploration, settlement and colonization of the United States territory began in 1512 from south to north and westward (from Florida to New England and as far as Texas) with Ponce de Leon. (The east-west Lewis & Clark endeavor occurred in 1804.) Furthermore, in 1539, Hernando de Soto was appointed Governor of Florida, exploring the areas of Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and northwest Texas. He discovered the Mississippi River.
  • The 1st European settlement on the Atlantic coast was established by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés en 1565 at a place he called San Agustín (St. Augustine, today) in Florida. (The Pilgrims arrived in Jamestown in 1607.)
  • The 1st recorded Thanksgiving celebration allegedly occurred in St. Augustine, Florida in 1565.  A second recorded such celebration occurred in San Elizario, Texas, when Juan de Oñate observed a Thanksgiving Ceremony in 1598. (Plymouth Rock occurred in 1621.)
  • After the U.S. independence from the English in 1776, much of the Southwestern territory remained inhabited by Spanish-speaking people of mestizo (Indian-Spanish) or Spanish ancestry as well as Indigenous peoples who were citizens of Mexico. Many states and cities in this territory were governed by Spain first and Mexico second until the 1800s, such as Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah.
  • The origins of the Hispanic population in the US were firstly those descendants of Spanish settlers and Indigenous American nations in both Florida and the Southern territory who were originally citizens of Mexico before the border was moved: “they didn’t cross the border; the border crossed them.” Hispanic immigration to the U.S. started and increased long after that resulting in Hispanic populations grouped by national origin (Cuban in the southeast; Mexican in the southwest; or Caribbean/Puerto Rican in the south). Today, that is no longer the case.

Thomas Jefferson in the 1700s

Back in 1787, Jefferson acknowledged the Spanish origins of the territory that is now the United States. In his library at Monticello, he kept books in Spanish such as:

1. Historia Natual y moral de las Indias by Fray Juan de Torquemada
2. Four volumes of Don Quijote by Cervantes
3. La Florida by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega
4. Historia de la conquista de México, América Septentrional o Nueva España by Antonio de Soliz y Rivadeneira

In writing to some of the young men in his family, he said,

“Spanish. Bestow great attention on this, and endeavor to acquire an accurate knowledge of it. Our future connections with Spain and Spanish America will render that language a valuable acquisition. The antient history of a great part of America too is written in that language.”

“Apply yourself to the Study of the Spanish language will all the assiduity you can. It and the English covering nearly the whole face of America, they should be well known to every inhabitant, who means to look beyond the limits of his farm.”

“With respect to modern languages, French [is indispensable]. Next to this, the Spanish is most important to an American. Our connection with Spain is already important and will become daily more so. Besides this, the ancient part of American history is written chiefly in Spanish.”

American History & Perspective Today

Unfortunately, the following quote by former president Teddy Roosevelt in 1919, given in a context of international strife, has permeated the U.S. even today:

“In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American… There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile…We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

History in general is complex but it behooves us to make an effort to learn its many variables and perspectives in order to sanely assess the present and the future.

The United States has been good to many of us who are immigrants, and we acknowledge the fact that, as any other country with a humans in it, its history will contain both good and bad, happy and sad memories. We owe it to our children to teach it all. Thankfully, progress has been made, albeit somewhat slowly. We are hopeful!

Walt Whitman On Hispanic Heritage (1883)

Read below an excerpt of a letter written by Whitman in 1883 in commemoration of the 333rd anniversary of the founding of Santa Fe, or read it in its entirety HERE.

Hispanic Literature & Writers in the U.S.

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Earliest Literary Works in the US territory

The first books written in the territory that would later become the United States, written in Spanish, were the following:

Other Early Historical Works in Spanish:

Current Hispanic Poets and Writers

A more exhaustive list will be available soon!

Read More

U.S. History:

Spanish Language:

From Our Blog

“Children from dominant social groups have always found their mirrors in books, but they, too, have suffered from the lack of availability of books about others. They need the books as windows onto reality, not just on imaginary worlds. They need books that will help them understand the multicultural nature of the world they live in, and their place as a member of just one group, as well as their connections to all other humans. In this country, where racism is still one of the major unresolved social problems, books may be one of the few places where children who are socially isolated and insulated from the larger world may meet people unlike themselves. If they see only reflections of themselves, they will grow up with an exaggerated sense of their own importance and value in the world–a dangerous ethnocentrism.”

Rudine Simons Bishop
“Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Glass Doors” originally appeared in Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom. Vol. 6, no. 3. Summer 1990.