That may be true, but how far have those politicians and political forces actually gotten in "banning" Spanish, from anything? Not very far. And really, it's become a non-issue. The vast majority of Hispanic immigrants learn English fairly quickly.
Actually, that is not the case and never has been.
Most first generation immigrants who arrive as adults and who come to escape poverty learn little beyond essential English and are not generally and in their majority "bilingual" to any extent. They are too busy working long hours to spend much time learning the language to any deep extent.
And in areas of the US where immigrants of one country or region and language concentrate, there are ghettos which allow a person to never need to learn English. "La Sauesera" (The Southwest Eighth Street" in Miami is a perfect example of this.
On the other hand, political refugees tend to be the upper and middle classes of their home country. They may already know some English from going to a bilingual school, a common case in much of Latin America. Or, at least, they are university graduates and are able to add a new language to their abilities with some ease.
However, in general, the ability to learn a new language proficiently declines after the early teen years. Adults who are monolingual have a lot of difficulty learning a new language and that is why media in their own tongue prospers in many places in the US.
The vast majority of Ethiopian or Somali or Gambian or Senegalese or Pakistani or Indian or Chinese immigrants to the US learn English fairly quickly.
But, usually, at a very basic and functional level. Knowing what "Hand me the flat-head screwdriver" is a lot easier to assimilate than understanding Holden in "Catcher in the Rye".
The vast majority of all of these immigrants I've met or interacted with are bilingual. They're more interested in communicating with other Americans than making an issue of language.
And that is because you are less likely to meet first generation immigrants who are not at all proficient in English. In my experience in Spanish language radio in the US (Including managing over 500 remotes in my first position in Los Angeles) I doubt more than 10%... if that... spoke any more than "emergency English".
As for the brouhaha over the stations in Miami, they're two AM stations. I would like to see proof that the 'right-wing agenda' promoted by either of them is causing all Hispanics in Miami to become GOP right wingers, as alleged in the "What's The Matter Florida GOP" article.
In fact, with exactly 20 Spanish language station in the Miami market, most listeners will simply seek other stations, some of which will fill any void created by the loss of WAQI from the anti-socialist platform.
I would also guess that younger Hispanics in the Miami metro listen to music radio, not the two AM talkers in question.
And those who are second generation and beyond tend to listen to English language stations, although the surge in reggaetón in the last decade has returned many to Spanish language radio.
And, yes, they do not listen to AM. There are 10 FM signals local to the market in Spanish, with 7 billing over $5 million annually.
I would guess that even older Hispanics in the Miami metro have access to the internet, and other Spanish language media there, as well as nationwide. The writer of the "What's the matter Florida GOP" opinion article seems to think that Miami Hispanics are so docile and easily swayed that they incapable of getting their information from various sources.
In this we have agreement. However, there is no other major center of Cuban, Nicaraguan, Venezuelan, Colombian and even Bolivian refugees in the US so the voices specific to their "cause" are very limited.
Looking over the LMN website, I wish them well. They may need it. If they're buying these stations to put a political agenda across, they'll really need the help. Left-wing politics doesn't seem to work well on the radio, as we saw with Air America. They tried, but it failed. And even BIN is mostly raw news, and they have indeed had a couple conservative viewpoints expressed here and there.
Air America failed mostly because it was not entertaining. Rush was an entertainer in his best years. The folks on Air America were crusaders and had few, if any, entertaining moments. They had no direction and guidance, because management was no gifted with radio experience; they had a cause akin to the Crusaders and had not time for amusement or entertainment. And the new group seems to be of the same persuasion, right down to the finance provider.
