¿Habla Usted Español?

To Canadians, Spanish is both close and unfamiliar. The language is all around us, yet it is less influential here than anywhere else in the western hemisphere. As Spanish’s cultural influence booms, propelled by economic growth in Latin America and the mounting self-confidence of the 52 million-strong Hispanic minority in the United States, Spanish is in retreat as an academic discipline in Canadian universities. In The Story of Spanish Montreal authors Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow report that 6.4 million Americans study Spanish, as do 5 million Brazilians, 2.1 million French and half a million Germans. Universities such as Arizona State enroll squads of students in degrees in Hispanic literature or linguistics. In Canada, the 1994 implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement was supposed to elevate Spanish to this academic big league. Canadians such as myself, who were teaching the discipline at universities overseas...