El panorama del español en Estados Unidos

The goal of this paper is to reflect on the situation of the Spanish language in the USA, considering basic concepts in Sociolinguistics such as identity, attitude and prestige. Forecasts indicate that by 2050 USA will be the country with the largest number of Spanish speakers. These forecasts are based almost exclusively on the number of people that will costitute the Latin-community in the coming years. In this paper, we consider that statements like the above may be moot if we analyze the concrete situation in which Spanish speakers are in the USA and the attitudes and opinions arising from the use of this language in the United States. In order to get answers to basic questions -namely, in the USA, regarding the relationship Spanish-English, we find a situation of bilingualism or diglossia?; What is the future of Spanish in the USA? What role will play the Spanish language in the USA in the coming years?-, in this paper we analyze: 1) the presence of the Spanish language in the USA; 2) the language planning of the central government of the USA; 3) the use of the language by the Spanish speakers in USA; and 4) the attitude of English speakers towards Spanish language.