The U.S. now has more Spanish speakers than Spain

The U.S. now  has more Spanish speakers than Spain. Only Mexico has more Spanish speakers. We have 41 million native speakers and 11 million bilingual speakers. The U.S. Census office estimates that by 2050 the U.S. will have 138 million Spanish speakers, making it the biggest Spanish speaking country on Earth. They estimate that almost one third of  the U.S. will have Spanish as their first language. We have more students taking Spanish as a second language than any other country.

The Index of Human Development ranks Spanish as the second most important language on Earth, only ranked after English but ahead of Mandarin. It is also the second most used language on Twitter and on Facebook.

Spanish speakers account for almost 10% of the world's GDP. The Census Bureau in 2014 found that there are more Latinos in California than non-Hispanic whites. That makes California the second state where Latinos are the majority. New Mexico is the other state. In the next few years Latinos will be the majority in Texas. The Latino vote in the next presidential vote, many say, will decide who the next president of the USA will be.  

This strength in numbers has not shown as a political force as the Latino community lacks the structural and organizational and economic skills presently but that will change and they will become a stronger political and economic force in America.