THE White House website's page, Twitter account and Facebook site in Spanish have disappeared within two days of Republican leader Donald Trump being sworn in as president, despite the USA having more Spanish speakers in residence than the entire population of Spain.
Those who tried to enter Whitehouse.gov/espanol on Sunday found an error message in English reading, 'Sorry the page you're looking for can't be found'.
Opened just a few months after outgoing president Barack Obama got into power, the Spanish-language site has been deleted along with the Twitter account for the White House, @LaCasaBlanca, and the government residence's Facebook site in the language.
And the head of the Hispanic Press and Media department, Gabriela Chojkier, who worked for Obama's government, has not been replaced, leading to suspicions that this unit has also been eliminated.
Over 55 million people in the USA speak Spanish as a native language and many more as a second language.
Whilst the vast majority of native Spanish-speakers in the United States are Latin American – principally from Mexico, the island of Puerto Rico which is now officially a US State, and Cuba – a high number of expatriates from Spain also live there, a decision many took because their mother tongue was so prolific in the country.
Between 1912 and 1920, over 14,000 natives of the Valencia region alone emigrated to the USA for a better life, most of whom were from the northern part of the province of Alicante, and whose grandchildren and great-grandchildren now retain strong ties with both countries, whichever they now live in.
Others fled to the USA from Spain to escape the Civil War and, although most exiles went to Latin America, many of those since moved north for a better quality of life and to get away from political troubles in countries that had fallen into dictatorships or communist régimes.
The USA has long been considered unofficially bilingual, even though English is the only official language, and services and facilities in Spanish have long been part of the furniture.
Celebrity Hispanics who have lived in the USA include Colombian pop-rocker Shakira and her ex-boyfriend, Argentinian national Antonio de la Rúa; Gloria Estefan, who is originally Cuban; Jennifer López, born in the Bronx area of New York to Puerto Rican parents – even though she in fact speaks Spanish as a second language and only has a working knowledge of it – Christina Aguilera, American-born and a native English-speaker but with an Ecuadorian father; rocker Santana, originally Mexican, and prolific novelist and Spanish-language literary icon Isabel Allende, from Chile, who spent several years in the USA and has joint American-Chilean nationality.
Numerous descendants of Spaniards live in the USA as a result of the diaspora at the turn of the 20th century – in fact, the world's then oldest man, Salustiano 'Shorty' Sánchez, who died in September 2013 aged 112, was born in El Tejado de Béjar (Salamanca province) and did not move to the USA until he was over 30.
Another famous Spaniard who has spent time living in the USA and has strong links with the country is Penélope Cruz, whose star-studded career began with her roles in the off-the-wall films by cult director Pedro Almodóvar and as a dancer for the legendary Spanish 1980s' band Mecano, and who broke into Hollywood in 2001.
And one of Spain's best-known celebrity chefs, José Andrés, has lived and worked in the USA for over 20 years, where he runs 18 restaurants.
He was due to become manager of the restaurant at Donald Trump's exclusive Trump International Hotel in New York, a very lucrative job contract which would have launched him to world fame and even greater fortune.
But the now-president's comments during his electoral campaign, branding Hispanics and, specifically, Mexicans, as 'thieves and rapists', as well as his continuing insistence on building a wall across the Mexican border, led Andrés to break off the deal.
Proud to be a Spanish immigrant and also a US citizen, Andrés says over half his workforce is Latin American.
Whilst all the above-quoted Spanish and Latin American migrants almost certainly speak English fluently, a high number of them are likely to be outraged by the sentiment behind the removal of the Spanish versions of the White House's various internet sites.
Even during his electoral campaign, Trump caused upset among famous figureheads over his criticism of Spanish being spoken in the USA.
Over a year ago, he reproached his own Republican colleague and former governor of Florida, Jeb Bush – who is of Latin origin – for giving a political rally in Spanish in Miami.
Trump said Jeb Bush should 'set an example' and 'speak English while he is in America'.
As well as the Spanish-language website, Twitter account and Facebook page, Trump's cabinet has also eliminated all reference to the rights of gay, lesbian and bisexual residents and to those of transsexuals from its internet pages.
