Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 128, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 November 1903 — New Mexico’s Population. [ARTICLE]

New Mexico’s Population.

Three-fifths of New Mexico’s population is made up of real Americans from the East and their descendants; the remaining two-fifths are nativeborn American citizens of Spanish descent tine-half of the latter and quite a percentage of the older “American” settlers speak Spanish as well as English. A good three-fourths of the entire population speak English. About one-fourth do not understand the English language very well. Nearly every person in the Territory of Spanish descent speaks some English. It could not well be otherwise, when they have been for fifty-seven years under the American flag, and every person born there under that age is a born American citizen. The people of New Mexico have a smaller percentage of for-eign-born people among them than any Jurisdiction in the nation, save some of the Southern States. English is overwhelmingly the official language and the general language of the Territory.