Luis García Montero: "I'm worried about Spanish in the US because of the hatred toward Hispanics."

The director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero , criticized this Monday that Europe "has humiliated itself and knelt before a millionaire who believes in the law of the strongest" and said that he is "very concerned" about the situation of Spanish in the United States in the face of "hatred towards all things Hispanic," he indicated in reference to the meeting yesterday between Ursula Von der Leyen and the American president regarding the agreement on tariffs. The writer referred to these issues in a meeting with the media prior to the inauguration of the annual meeting of directors of the Cervantes Institute at the University of La Laguna (Tenerife), where he considered it "indispensable" that Spain "turn its eyes" towards Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa.

Furthermore, he continued, the Cervantes Institute views with concern how Trump represents a supremacist idea of identity and has become an enemy of the Spanish language in the United States, propagating "a contemptuous view of Hispanics" that has led to insults being leveled at girls who speak Spanish at school or at shoppers in a supermarket. "A discourse of hatred toward Hispanics is being generated" in the United States, which García Montero links to the decline in the number of students studying Philology and Spanish, as "the liquidation of humanistic studies" is due to the fact that "culture creates critical awareness."

He noted that, with more than 60 million speakers, Spanish remains strong in the United States.

However, he also noted that, with more than 60 million speakers , Spanish remains strong in the United States and an awareness of its strength is growing, which has framed the agreement between the Cervantes Institute and the Mexican Chamber of Deputies to vindicate the language's role on the continent. However, the Cervantes Institute still faces "many challenges," and at the meeting of its directors in La Laguna, they will address challenges such as "the lack of budget," which is quite modest compared to that of peer institutions such as the British Council in the United Kingdom and the Goethe-Institut in Germany. Fortunately, García Montero continued, more than 40 percent of the Institute's funding is self-funded through tuition, classes, and certificates of Spanish as a foreign language and basic knowledge required to obtain citizenship.

García Montero also expressed pride in Spain's response to the conflict in Gaza, a situation in which, paraphrasing former Foreign Minister Josep Borrell, who was present at the meeting, he stated that "Europe is losing its soul" in the Palestinian Strip.

The director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero , criticized this Monday that Europe "has humiliated itself and knelt before a millionaire who believes in the law of the strongest" and said that he is "very concerned" about the situation of Spanish in the United States in the face of "hatred towards all things Hispanic," he indicated in reference to the meeting yesterday between Ursula Von der Leyen and the American president regarding the agreement on tariffs. The writer referred to these issues in a meeting with the media prior to the inauguration of the annual meeting of directors of the Cervantes Institute at the University of La Laguna (Tenerife), where he considered it "indispensable" that Spain "turn its eyes" towards Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa.

Furthermore, he continued, the Cervantes Institute views with concern how Trump represents a supremacist idea of identity and has become an enemy of the Spanish language in the United States, propagating "a contemptuous view of Hispanics" that has led to insults being leveled at girls who speak Spanish at school or at shoppers in a supermarket. "A discourse of hatred toward Hispanics is being generated" in the United States, which García Montero links to the decline in the number of students studying Philology and Spanish, as "the liquidation of humanistic studies" is due to the fact that "culture creates critical awareness."