In San Jose, Spanish isn’t optional. It’s essential.

Hospitals, banks—most public-facing companies—aren’t hiring Spanish-speaking workers for diversity’s sake. They’re hiring them because they need them. If a large share of your customers only speak Spanish, you need staff who can speak it, too. That’s operational reality.

But society still treats bilingualism like an add-on, a perk, a resume booster, and not what it really is: a critical part of our regional workforce infrastructure.

I’m a high school senior who has spent the last year researching how Spanish-English bilingualism affects wages and hiring across the Bay Area. I’ve spoken with hiring managers, analyzed thousands of job listings and built Bilingual Bay, a job board exclusively for bilingual jobs.

What I’ve found is strik

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