Overview
- On Dec. 9, Luis García Montero said the climate created by President Trump is complicating plans to open a new Instituto Cervantes center in Miami.
- Despite Spanish being the mother tongue of more than 40 million people in the United States, he described mounting tensions at universities and alleged cuts affecting Spanish programs at institutions such as Harvard and Columbia.
- He argued that hostile rhetoric is prompting some Hispanic parents to steer children away from speaking Spanish and that students and service workers using the language face ridicule.
- García Montero also escalated a dispute with RAE director Santiago Muñoz Machado, accusing him of moving unilaterally to select Panama for the next CILE and saying the Academy should be led by a top philologist rather than a business lawyer.
- He warned that Spain’s frozen state budgets are limiting Cervantes’ international expansion and said he would report these constraints at the institute’s patronato meeting in Aranjuez with the monarchs and government leaders.