Spain and the United States - Real Instituto Elcano

CULTURAL RELATIONS, IMAGE AND ANTI-AMERICANISM 109
Exhibit 6.1 Foreign Language Enrolments in State Secondary Schools as a
Percentage of the Total*
Hume (1847-1910) published an article shortly before his death about the
“instinctive mutual attraction” of Spain and the United States which helps to
explain the fascination of Spain. “A strenuous people find in the repose of the
Spaniards an antidote for their restlessness; a nation of businessmen are
brought into contact with a people, the keynote of whose character is an almost
disdainful regard for laborious and calculated gain; on the one hand, keen
acquisitiveness, on the other a languid magnanimity incite in their opposites
the wondering admiration that engenders a kind of humorous and tolerant
affection on both sides.” That may have been true a century ago, but certainly
not today, although the image still persists.
The teaching of Spanish is growing every year. According to the American
Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, more than 4 million students
in state secondary schools are learning Spanish. They accounted for close to
70% of all language enrolments in grades 7-12 (see Exhibit 6.1). The number
of Americans learning Spanish in institutions of higher education is more than
the total studying all other languages, according to the Modern Languages
Association. Most of these students are not Hispanics. Just as the growth in the
number of people studying Spanish at university is not solely due to the rise in
the Hispanic population, although it is a major factor, so the teaching of Latin,
German and French, the main languages studied in the past, was not due to the
demographic weight of their speakers in the United States. Of the 1.39 million
enrolments in 2002 (latest year available), 53.4% were for Spanish, 14.4% for
French and 6.5% for German (see Exhibit 6.2). The distribution of these