Title: Spanish Americans - Wikipedia
Headings: Spanish Americans
Spanish Americans
Contents
Immigration waves
19th and 20th centuries
Principal areas of settlement
California
Florida
Hawaii
Louisiana
New Mexico
New York
Culture
Cuisine
Spanish language in the U.S.
Religion
Socioeconomics
Number of Spanish Americans
Censuses
1980
1990
2000
2010
American Community Survey, 2013
Political participation
Place names of Spanish origin
Notable people
See also
About Spanish Americans
About Hispanic Americans and Spanish Canadians
References
Further reading
External links

Content: The Spanish presence in the United States declined sharply between 1930 and 1940 from a total of 110,000 to 85,000, because many immigrants returned to Spain after finishing their farmwork. Beginning with the Fascist coup d'état against the Second Spanish Republic in 1936 and the devastating civil war that ensued, General Francisco Franco established a fascist dictatorship for 40 years. At the time of the Fascist takeover, a small but prominent group of liberal intellectuals fled to the United States. After the civil war the country endured 20 years of autarky, as Franco believed that post- World War II Spain could survive or continue its activities without any European assistance. As a result, in the mid-1960s, 44,000 Spaniards immigrated to the United States, as part of a second wave of Spanish immigration. In the 1970s, when Franco abandoned Spain's autarkic economic system, prosperity began to emerge in Spain, and Spanish immigration to the United States declined to about 3,000 per year. In the 1980s, as Europe enjoyed an economic boom, Spanish immigrants to the United States dropped to only 15,000. The 1990 U.S. census recorded 76,000 foreign-born Spaniards in the country, representing only four-tenths of a percent of the total populace. Like the rest of Europe, 21st century immigrants from Spain are only 10,000 per year at most. Much as with French Americans, who are of French descent but mostly by way of Canada, the majority of the 41 million massively strong Spanish-speaking population have come by way of Latin America, especially Mexico, but also Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and other areas that the Spanish themselves colonized.