> given that the Americans only showed up a hundred years after the (mostly failed) Mission system started teaching Spanish Much less than 100 years. Mission S

> given that the Americans only showed up a hundred years after the (mostly failed) Mission system started teaching Spanish Much less than 100 years. Mission San Diego, founded 1769. Mission Delores (San Francisco), founded 1776. Yankees started showing up in the 1820s, purchasing land parcels from local cash-strapped rancheros with gold. And the Russians only sold-out Ft. Ross in northern California to John Sutter in 1841. By the time Mexico and the USA went to war in 1846, ostensibly because the Texas Republic joined the Union, the California English and Spanish speaking populations were about evenly split at 5,000 each. More English speaking in northern California, more Spanish speaking in southern.