Spanish Americans (Spanish: españoles estadounidenses, hispanoestadounidenses, or hispanonorteamericanos) are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from Spain. They are the longest-established European American group in the modern United States, with a very small group descending from those explorations leaving from Spain and the Viceroyalty of New Spain (modern Mexico), and starting in the early 1500s, of 42 of the future U.S. states from California to Florida; and beginning a continuous presence in Florida since 1565 and New Mexico since 1598.
In the 2020 United States census, 978,978 self-identified as "Spaniard" representing (0.4%) of the white alone or in combination population who responded to the question. Other results include 866,356 (0.4%) identifying as "Spanish" and 50,966 who identified with "Spanish American".
Many Hispanic and Latino Americans (the Hispanos of New Mexico being the oldest group) living in the United States have some Spanish ancestral roots due to up to four centuries of Spanish colonial settlement and significant immigration of Spaniards after independence. In terms of ancestry, these groups, and especially white Hispanic and Latino Americans 12,579,626 (white alone, 20.3% of all Hispanics) could be called "Spanish Americans", with the caveat that they can also include European origins other than Spanish, and often Amerindian or African ancestry. A number of communities descended from European Spanish immigrants are elided by the “Hispanic and Latino” ethnic category; these include the descendants of Basques in the western states, Isleños in the gulf coast states, and Asturians in states like West Virginia, among others.
The term "Spanish American" is used mostly to refer to Americans whose self-identified ancestry originates directly from Spain in the 19th and 20th centuries.
History
Juan Ponce de León was the first Spaniard to explore what is now the United States. He explored the area of Florida. The first Native American tribe he encountered were the Calusa. The Spanish enslaved Native Americans and drastically reduced their population by transmitting diseases like smallpox, measles, whooping cough, and influenza.
Immigration waves
Throughout the colonial times, there were a number of European settlements of Spanish populations in the present-day United States of America with governments answerable to Madrid. The first settlement on modern-day U.S. soil was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1521, followed by St. Augustine, Florida (the oldest in the continental United States), in 1565, followed by others in New Mexico, California, Arizona, and Texas. In 1598, San Juan de los Caballeros was established, near present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico, by Juan de Oñate and about 1,000 other Spaniards from the Viceroyalty of New Spain.
Spanish immigrants also established settlements in San Diego, California (1602), San Antonio, Texas (1691) and Tucson, Arizona (1699). By the mid-1600s the Spanish in America numbered more than 400,000.
After the establishment of the American colonies, an additional 250,000 immigrants arrived either directly from Spain, the Canary Islands or, after a relatively short sojourn, from present-day central Mexico. These Spanish settlers expanded European influence in the New World. The Canary Islanders settled in bayou areas surrounding New Orleans in Louisiana from 1778 to 1783 and in San Antonio de Bejar, San Antonio, Texas, in 1731.
The earliest known Spanish settlements in the then northern Mexico were the result of the same forces that later led the English to come to North America. Exploration had been fueled in part by imperial hopes for the discovery of wealthy civilizations. In addition, like those aboard the Mayflower, most Spaniards came to the New World seeking land to farm, or occasionally, as historians have recently established, freedom from religious persecution. A smaller percentage of new Spanish settlers were descendants of Spanish Jewish converts and Spanish Muslim converts.
Basques stood out in the exploration of the Americas, both as soldiers and members of the crews that sailed for the Spanish. Another reason for their emigration besides the restrictive inheritance laws in the Basque Country, was the devastation from the Napoleonic Wars in the first half of the nineteenth century, which was followed by defeats in the two Carlist civil wars. (For more information about the Basque, and immigrants to the United States from this region, see Basque Americans.)
19th and 20th centuries
Immigration to the United States from Spain was controversially minimal but steady during the first half of the nineteenth century, with an increase during the 1850s and 1860s resulting from the bloody warfare of the Carlist civil wars during the years of 1833–1876. Much larger numbers of Spanish immigrants entered the country in the first quarter of the twentieth century—27,000 in the first decade and 68,000 in the second—due to the same circumstances of rural poverty and urban congestion that led other Europeans to emigrate in that period, as well as unpopular wars-in this first wave of Spanish immigration. The Spanish presence in the United States declined sharply between 1930 and 1940 from a total of 110,000 to 85,000, because many immigrants returned to Spain after finishing their farmwork.
Beginning with the coup d'état against the Second Spanish Republic in 1936 and the devastating civil war that ensued, General Francisco Franco established a dictatorship for 37 years. At the time of his takeover, a small but prominent group of liberal intellectuals fled to the United States. After the civil war the country endured a period of autarky, as Franco believed that post-World War II Spain could survive or continue its activities without any European assistance.
Main areas of settlement
Spanish Americans in the United States are found in large concentrations in five major states from 1940 through the early twenty-first century. In 1940, the highest concentration of Spaniards were in New York (primarily New York City), followed by California, Florida, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The 1950 U.S. census indicated little change—New York with 14,705 residents from Spain and California with 10,890 topped the list. Spaniards followed into New Jersey with 3,382, followed by Florida (3,382) and Pennsylvania (1,790). By 1990 and 2000, there was relatively little change except in the order of the states and the addition of Texas. In 1990, Florida ranked first with 78,656 Spanish immigrants followed by: California 74,784, New York (42,309), Texas (32,226), New Jersey (28,666). The 2000 U.S. census saw a significant decline in Spanish-origin immigrants. California now ranked highest (22,459), followed by, Florida (14,110 arriving from Spain), New York (13,017), New Jersey (9,183), Texas (7,202).
Communities in the United States, in keeping with their strong regional identification in Spain, have established ethnic organizations for Basques, Galicians, Asturians, Andalusians, and other such communities.
These figures show that there was never the mass emigration from Iberia that there was from Latin America. It is evident in the figures that Spanish immigration peaked in the 1910s and 1920s. The majority settled in Florida and New York, although there was also a sizable Spanish influx to West Virginia at the turn of the 20th century, mostly from Asturias. These Asturian immigrants worked in the U.S. zinc industry after having worked in the smelters of Real Compañía Asturiana de Minas in Arnao, on the north coast near Avilés.
It is likely that more Spaniards settled in Latin America than in the United States, due to common language, shared religion, and cultural ties.
California
A Californio is a Spanish term for a descendant of a person of Spanish and Mexican ancestry who was born in Alta California. "Alta California" refers to the time of the first Spanish presence established by the Portolá expedition in 1769 until the region's cession to the United States of America in 1848.
Since 1945, others sometimes referred to as Californios (many appear in the "Notable Californios" section below) include:
Early Alta California immigrants who settled down and made new lives in the province, regardless of where they were born. This group is distinct from indigenous peoples of California. Descendants of Californios, especially those who married other Californios.
The military, religious and civil components of pre-1848 Californio society were embodied in the thinly-populated presidios, missions, pueblos and ranchos. Until they were secularized in the 1830s, the twenty-one Spanish missions of California, with their thousands of more-or-less captive native converts, controlled the most (about 1,000,000 acres (4,000 km2) per mission) and best land, had large numbers of workers, grew the most crops and had the most sheep, cattle and horses. After secularization, the Mexican authorities divided most of the mission lands into new ranchos and granted them to Mexican citizens (already present Californios) resident in California.
The Spanish colonial and later Mexican national governments encouraged settlers from the northern and western provinces of Mexico, whom Californios called "Sonorans." Small groups of people from other parts of Latin America (most notably Peru and Chile) also settled in California. However, only a few official colonization efforts (from New Spain) were ever undertaken—notably the second expeditions of Gaspar de Portolá (1770) and of Juan Bautista de Anza (1775–1776). Children of those few early settlers and retired soldiers became the first Californios. One genealogist estimated that, in 2004, between 300,000 and 500,000 Californians were descendants of Californios.
Florida
Juan Ponce de León, a Spanish conquistador, named Florida in honor of his discovery of the land on April 2, 1513, during Pascua Florida, a Spanish term for the Easter season. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded the city of St. Augustine in 1565; the first European-founded city in what is now the continental United States.
The El Centro Español de Tampa remains one of the few surviving structures specific to Spanish immigration to the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a legacy that garnered the Centro Español building recognition as a U.S. National Historic Landmark (NHL) on June 3, 1988.
Spanish immigrants established important mutual-aid societies such as El Centro Español (1891) and the Centro Asturiano. These institutions provided healthcare, education, cultural activities, and social support for newly arrived immigrants and their descendants
In the early 1880s, Tampa was an isolated village with a population of less than 1000 and a struggling economy. However, its combination of a good port, Henry Plant's new railroad line, and humid climate attracted the attention of Vicente Martinez Ybor, a prominent Spanish-born cigar manufacturer; the neighborhood of Ybor City was named after him.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Tampa became one of the principal destinations for Spanish immigrants in the United States. Drawn by employment opportunities in the cigar industry, thousands of Spaniards, particularly from the regions of Asturias and Galicia in Northern Spain, settled in Ybor City and West Tampa.
The development of Ybor City after 1885 attracted large numbers of Spanish cigar workers and their families, helping transform Tampa into a major cigar-manufacturing center and one of the largest Spanish immigrant communities in the United States.
Together with Cuban and Italian immigrants, Spaniards played a major role in shaping Florida's multicultural identity. Their legacy remains visible in the historic architecture, cultural institutions, and community traditions.
Hawaii
Spanish immigration to Hawaii began when the Hawaiian government and the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association (HSPA) decided to supplement their ongoing importation of Portuguese workers to Hawaii with workers recruited from Spain. Importation of Spanish laborers, along with their families, continued until 1913, at which time more than 9,000 Spanish immigrants had been brought in, most recruited to work primarily on the Hawaiian sugar plantations.
The importation of Spanish laborers to Hawaii began in 1907, when the British steamship SS Heliopolis arrived in Honolulu Harbor with 2,246 immigrants from the Málaga province of Spain. However, rumored poor accommodations and food on the voyage created political complications that delayed the next Spanish importation until 1911, when the SS Orteric arrived with a mixed contingent of 960 Spanish and 565 Portuguese immigrants, the Spanish having boarded at Gibraltar, and the Portuguese at Porto and Lisbon. Although Portuguese immigration to Hawaii effectively ended after the arrival of the Orteric, the importation of Spanish laborers and their families continued until 1913, ultimately bringing to Hawaii a total of 9,262 Spanish immigrants.
Six ships between 1907 and 1913 brought over 9,000 Spanish immigrants from the Spanish mainland to Hawaii. Although many of the Portuguese immigrants who preceded them to Hawaii arrived on small wooden sailing ships of less than a thousand gross tonnage capacity, all of the ships involved in the Spanish immigration were large, steel-hulled, passenger steamships.
Louisiana
Louisiana is home to one of the oldest Spanish-descended populations in the United States. During Spanish rule (1763–1803), colonial authorities encouraged immigration from Spain to the area.
The majority of them descend from Canarian settlers who arrived in Louisiana between 1778 and 1783. Its members are descendants of colonists from the Canary Islands, which is part of Spain off the coast of Africa. They settled in Spanish Louisiana between and intermarried with other communities such as French, Acadians, Creoles, and other groups, mainly through the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Isleños originally settled in four communities including Galveztown, Valenzuela, Barataria, and San Bernardo.
Following significant flooding of the Mississippi River in 1782, the Barataria settlement was abandoned and the survivors were relocated to San Bernardo and Valenzuela with some settling in West Florida.
Additional immigrants from mainland Spain settled in southern Louisiana. Colonists from the city of Málaga founded New Iberia, which became one of the most significant Spanish settlements in the colony.
In St. Bernard Parish, descendants of the Isleños preserved a unique Spanish dialect and cultural traditions well into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, making Louisiana one of the few regions of the United States with a continuous Spanish-speaking heritage dating to the colonial era.
New Mexico
Hispanos of New Mexico (less commonly referred to as Neomexicanos or Nuevomexicanos) are descendants of Spanish and Mexican colonists who settled the area of New Mexico and Southern Colorado. Most made the journey from New Spain, now principally modern Mexico. The vast majority of these settlers married and mixed with the local indigenous people of New Mexico. Like the Californios and Tejanos, the descendants of these early settlers still retain a community of thousands of people in this state and that of southern Colorado.
New Mexico belonged to Spain for most of its modern history (16th century – 1821) and later to Mexico (1821–1848). The original name of the region was Santa Fé de Nuevo Mexico. The descendants of the settlers still retain a community of thousands of people in this state. Also, there is a community of Nuevomexicanos in Southern Colorado, due to shared colonial history.
Currently, the majority of the Nuevomexicano population is distributed between New Mexico and Southern Colorado. Most of the Nuevomexicanos that live in New Mexico live in the northern half of the state. There are hundreds of thousands of Nuevomexicanos living in New Mexico. Those who claim to be descendants of the first Hispanic settlers in this state currently account as the first predominant ancestry in the state.
There is also a community of people in Southern Colorado descended from Nuevomexicanos that migrated there in the 19th century. The stories and language of the Nuevomexicanos from Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado were studied by Nuevomexicano ethnographer, linguist, and folklorist Juan Bautista Rael and Aurelio Espinosa.
The origins of the Nuevomexicano community date back to the arrival of Spanish colonists led by Juan de Oñate in 1598, who established the first permanent Spanish settlements in the region. In 1610, Santa Fe was founded as the capital of Santa Fe de Nuevo México and became one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the present-day United States. Due in part to the region's relative geographic isolation, many traditions of Spanish origin, including architectural styles, religious celebrations, folk customs, and varieties of New Mexican Spanish, were preserved for centuries and continue to form an important part of the state's cultural identity.
Many New Mexican Hispanos trace their ancestry directly to these early settlers, preserving a distinct cultural heritage that includes traditions, architecture, religious practices, and varieties of New Mexican Spanish.
New York
Beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing through the early twentieth century, New York became one of the principal destinations for Spanish immigrants in the United States. Thousands arrived from Spanish regions such as Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country, and Andalusia, seeking economic opportunities in commerce, industry, and maritime trades. By the 1930s, New York was home to one of the largest Spanish-born populations in the country, with community organizations, mutual aid societies, newspapers, restaurants, and cultural institutions serving the growing immigrant population.
Spanish immigrants established numerous social and charitable organizations throughout the city. Institutions such as La Nacional—officially the Spanish Benevolent Society, founded in 1868—provided financial assistance, healthcare support, cultural activities, and educational opportunities for Spanish immigrants and their families. La Nacional remains one of the oldest Spanish mutual aid societies in the United States and continues to preserve the heritage of the Spanish-American community in New York.
New York also became an important center of political and cultural activity for Spanish exiles and expatriates during and after the Spanish Civil War. Intellectuals, artists, academics, and refugees settled in the city, contributing to Spanish-language journalism, education, and cultural life while maintaining ties with Spain and other Hispanic communities throughout the Americas.
"Little Spain" was a Spanish American neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan during the 20th century.
Little Spain was on 14th Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. A very different section of Chelsea existed on a stretch of 14th Street often referred to by residents as "Calle Catorce," or "Little Spain". The Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe (No. 299) was founded in 1902, when Spaniards started to settle in the area. Although the Spanish businesses have given way to such nightclubs as Nell's and Oh Johnny on the block between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, the Spanish food and gift emporium known as Casa Moneo was at 210 West 14th from 1929 until the 1980s.
In 2010 the documentary Little Spain, directed and written by Artur Balder, was filmed in New York City. The documentary pulled together for first time an archive that reveals the untold history of the Spanish-American presence in Manhattan. They present the history of the streets of Little Spain in New York City throughout the 20th Century. The archive contains more than 450 photographs and 150 documents that have never been publicly displayed.
Other important commerces and Spanish business of Little Spain were restaurants like La Bilbaína, Trocadero Valencia, Bar Coruña, Little Spain Bar, Café Madrid, Mesón Flamenco, or El Faro Restaurant, established 1927, and still today open at 823 Greenwich St. The Iberia was a famous Spanish dress shop.