Is the U.S. a "Bilingual" Consumer Market?

Spanish Spreads in U.S. as Nation Becomes Bilingual

Hispanic ascendance throughout the United States – there are now more Hispanics than African-Americans – is fueling the spread of Spanish.

“We are now a bilingual nation,” Louis Nevaer, author of “The Rise of the Hispanic Market in the United States,” told a conference last week. “We have a bilingual consumer economy.”

Nevaer argues:

For decades, executives throughout corporate America have watched with awe as the purchasing power of the Hispanic consumer market has exploded. Hispanics today control more than $600 billion in purchasing power, and, by 2010, this will reach $1 trillion. The rise in the economic power of Hispanics in the United States, and the way Hispanics identify themselves – by culture and language, not race – has created a parallel consumer market, one that coexists alongside the larger “Anglophone” consumer market.
These “parallel” economies have alarmed some English-speaking Americans. Joan Didion’s description of the linguistic “problem” is familiar: “An entrepreneur who spoke no English could still, in Miami, buy, sell, negotiate, leverage assets, float bonds, and, if he were so inclined, attend galas twice a week, in black tie. … [And among] Anglos who did not perceive themselves as economically or socially threatened … there remained considerable uneasiness on the matter of language, perhaps because the inability or the disinclination to speak English tended to undermine their conviction that assimilation was an ideal universally shared by those who were to be assimilated.”
Hispanics, without apology, refuse to “assimilate” – if that means giving up their culture and language. “When it comes to breakfast cereal,” Hispanics collectively have said, “our decision will be determined by which one advertises to us in Spanish: Post Raisin Bran or Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.” Corporate America has listened.
Proof? Pick up the phone can call any customer service number and you are likely to hear, “Press 1 to continue in English,” followed by “Oprima 2 para español.”
Welcome to the United States de América!
The lesson is obvious: the spread of Spanish throughout the United States, in fact, is consistent with Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.” Recall what Smith said about why things are the way they are in a market economy: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their self-interest. We address ourselves, no to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities, but of their advantages.”
Corporate America cannot be faulted for attempting to secure a competitive advantage by reaching out to customers in the language of their customers’ choice. It is in their best interest to have Spanish-speaking customer service representatives, lest those customers hang up and call a competitor who does have Spanish-speaking customer representatives at the other end of the telephone line. These companies are simply attempting to sell to their consumers who want to speak Spanish, whether it’s a seat on an airplane for a flight across country, or life insurance.

While in California, Nevaer elaborated: “It is as if, through sheer numbers, Hispanics are ‘reclaiming’ what was once New Spain, culturally, economically and linguistically. In places like California, the state’s ‘DNA’ itself is changing.”

For further information, see: “America the Bilingual,” in http://www.HispanicEconomics.com