Race and ethnicity in the United States
In the United States the Hispanic and Latino population has reached 58 million in 2016. According to Pew Research Center the Latino population has been the principal driver of United States demographic growth since 2000. Mexicans make up most of the Hispanic and Latino population 35,758,000. There is also a growth of Hispanics who are receiving a college education in 2015, 40% of Hispanics age 25 and older have had a college experience. In 2000 the percentage was at a low 30%. In all the 50 US states California houses the largest population percentage of Latinos. In 2015, 15.2 million Hispanics lived in California.
Hispanism
Hispanism in the United States has a long tradition and is highly developed. To a certain extent this is a result of the United States's own history, which is tied closely to the Spanish empire and its former colonies, especially Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Cuba. Historically, many Americans have romanticized the Spanish legacy and given a privileged position to the Castilian language and culture, while simultaneously downplaying or rejecting the Latin American and Caribbean dialects and cultures of the Spanish-speaking areas of U.S. influence. There are now more than thirty-five million Spanish-speakers in the United States, making Spanish the second most spoken language in the country and Latinos the largest national minority. Spanish is used actively in some of the most populous states, including California, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas, and in large cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Antonio and San Francisco. The American Association of Teachers of Spanish was founded in 1917 and holds a biennial congress outside the United States; "Hispania" is the association's official publication. (Since 1944, it is the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.) The North American Academy of the Spanish Language brings together Spanish speakers in North America.