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Pew Research: Latinx Used by Just 3% of U.S. Hispanics. About One-in-Four Have Heard of It
- Thread starter entremet
- Start date
Judging by the data, it has to be overwhelmingly white people.
Yeah, I was taught the language this way too, and it's definitly weird to see it pop up like that in the last decade or so. But on another level you gotta understand that those societies are incredibly sexists. In Argentina abortion is still illegal (hopefully this year a law to legalize it will be passed), I see catcalling on the street like 10 times a day, etc. So feminist groups are fighting hard for change, and language is one of those battles. Using "hermanos" as gender neutral may seem normal to you and me but for some it's a sign that the language was made by men and for men. I don't use inclusive language all that much, but it's very present on a day to day basis.
I don't pretend this is easy, even for me or my male friends. But it's a hot topic for sure.
The whole concept is in its infancy and a lot needs to be resolved for sure, so no hard answer for your question but yes, the adjectives would be neutral too. I use "chiques" often, but more in a cheeky way to be truthfull.
For sure latines would be the way it's done in Argentina. In general, when pronounced orally, all gender neutral words use th "e" sounds here. But the weird thing is that, nobody actually refers to itself as Latino or Latina on a day to day basis. I understand that in the US it's a very common way of designating the whole ethnicity, and I think that's why most of these discussions revolve around Latinx being a US thing.
And you're right, almost nobody is actually against the idea to gender neutralize on this thread, but I got irked by some saying the language is gendered and should be used as such.
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Not gonna lie, I'm aware of the lineage, but as a non-hispanic person "latinx" has always read as a bit of academic orientalism. "No, YOU should be changing YOUR whole language because its actually been non-inclusive this whole time. You just didn't realize it." Don't think I've heard a single hispanic person use or write it, but I've seen a hell of a lot of white academics in my circles gravitate to it.
Ethnicity versus race. Hispanic is supposed to be used to describe language use, not people's origins.
I've seen it used quite a bit among my friends in the Bay Area. Much less so from people I know in other parts (and I highly doubt most of my family has even heard of it).
As a Mexican, I'm... not totally on board with it yet. I absolutely support non-gendered pronouns and references but it just comes off as a very gentrified way to go about it. I wouldn't say I'm against it though nor will I stop anyone from continuing to refer to themselves as Latinx.
As a Mexican, I'm... not totally on board with it yet. I absolutely support non-gendered pronouns and references but it just comes off as a very gentrified way to go about it. I wouldn't say I'm against it though nor will I stop anyone from continuing to refer to themselves as Latinx.
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It's fascinating. Wikipedia says 44% of languages are gendered. Assuming a desire, there's a strong likelihood that different languages would tackle the problem in different ways. I can't think of anything in history that would result in the retooling of so many languages.
What's the origin of the word? It sounds like a marketing term and not born out of the culture or primary speakers of Spanish. But that's probably way to harsh to say.
I'm not against it, but it's still one of those things I would only use in a sentence if a Spanish speaking person used it before me in a conversation.
I'm not against it, but it's still one of those things I would only use in a sentence if a Spanish speaking person used it before me in a conversation.
Yeah I think we were ultimately talking past each other bexause we seem to be on the same page. My gripe is predominantly with the word Latinx and how it reeks of a tone deaf attempt of trying to be inclusive but ultimately is insensitive to the language and culture at hand. If other countries are adopting more gender neutral pronunciations, that's great. Its just not our place or job to get them to do that.
Honestly it just boils down to that dumb fucking word I've seen used in progressive/liberal circles by non-speakers
You tell me. I'm half French and for the love of god I can't think of a way to make French a gender neutral language. There are no clear masculine or feminine letters like "o" and "a" in spanish and many words are straight up written completly differently wether they refer to a man or a woman. Like the word "crazy" is "fou" for men and "folle" for women. Go and find a gender neutral version of that! XD
Yeah yeah I see that now. I got irked because I thought you were saying it was just a non speaker thing sorry ;).
But shouldn't you be polling the non-binary community in the Latin community for what word they want to use to be neutral in Spanish? I don't think if you polled English speaking communities as a whole that many would necessarily accept using they/their as someone's pronoun instead of he/his and she/her but that doesn't make it right. I'm not saying that the non-binary community would chose latinx they may choose another word, but it's them that are affected and historically in the English language there is still a large amount of hostility on normalising non-gendered terms and non-binary inclusive speach and that's for a language where the grammar currently allows for it (people just choose to be exclusive) , I'm not sure the Spanish community at large are necessarily going to be welcoming either?
OP
OP
Grammatical gender is not social gender, so the language is inclusive be default. This is understood by native speakers. This is the problem when you have non-native speakers trying to adjust a language they know nothing about, both historically and grammatically.
Moreover, there is a more Spanish friendly gender neutral term--Latine.
That must be the case. Every time I've seen it used on social media, it has been ridiculed to hell and back. It just doesn't work.
I've seen people pushing for "todes" instead of "todos/todas" but it sound so lame.
Latinx isn't a race either.
Hispanic and Latin-American mean very similar things except Hispanic excludes Brazil while including Spain whereas Latinx/Latin-American would exclude Spain and include Brazil.
I literally only know 1 Hispanic/latin person who uses it and she's super woke( not saying that's bad at all. But I mean it in she's really pushing stuff where as a lot of people don't)
Just say Latin American(s).
Edit: also come to terms with the fact that Latin America is ethically and culturally diverse and that trying to describe all of us with one word is just silly.
Edit: also come to terms with the fact that Latin America is ethically and culturally diverse and that trying to describe all of us with one word is just silly.
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It's for the non-binary community to choose their term, not the general populace. You are assuming that if you surveyed the same people they would accept Latine instead which is unlikely to be the case.
And also the pronouns in Spanish are very gendered, even the plural ones. I'm not talking about general nouns being gendered, I'm talking about how people get referred to. Though again this is not just a Spanish thing, English speaking people get very aggressive about using neutral speech to refer people as well and it's not a new grammar thing at all, it's just not willing to be accepting of others. I am definitely not saying that latinx should be the word to be used, just that when something affects a particular minority which this is absolutely the case , it should be what they think that bears the most weight. You didn't make the survey though, I just think in general it's something that's important to keep in mind.
What I use depends on the audience. I've been in Latino communities in the United States that almost exclusively use Latinx, so I have no problem using the term if that's what makes that particular community comfortable. I don't particular appreciate folks taking away that agency and erasing their identities by saying those communities don't exist or are white or not Latino enough. Particularly when it's coming from non-Latino folk...
Personally, I think Latine is the best solution in both English and Spanish, but I do think it's ultimately up to non-binary folks to decide what word they want to use for themselves as well as what make them feel included when talking about everyone in one group including non-binary people, women, and men.
Personally, I think Latine is the best solution in both English and Spanish, but I do think it's ultimately up to non-binary folks to decide what word they want to use for themselves as well as what make them feel included when talking about everyone in one group including non-binary people, women, and men.
Yeah, this doesn't surprise me one bit. Never heard any latinos use this term, it definitely feels like a white person thing trying to include themselves into things or trying to whitewash hispanics.
Didn't see this but how am I not surprised that this happened here?
Didn't see this but how am I not surprised that this happened here?
The article: Queer, Latin communities in the US use "latinx" but in small numbers, reflecting not only a lack of awareness but a resistance towards recognizing a need to de-gender language in a world where identities are otherwise so easily erased and ignored.
This thread: Must be the whites!
There's no harm in using Latinx as an English term and no harm in using Latine as a term more compatible with how the Spanish language usually flows. A thread full of "WELL i AIN'T NEVER HEARD IT" and barking at strawmen like "them woke whites" only furthers erasure and embraces non-discussion of the issues facing non-binary spanish speakers and cultural inertia for no perceptible benefit.
This thread: Must be the whites!
There's no harm in using Latinx as an English term and no harm in using Latine as a term more compatible with how the Spanish language usually flows. A thread full of "WELL i AIN'T NEVER HEARD IT" and barking at strawmen like "them woke whites" only furthers erasure and embraces non-discussion of the issues facing non-binary spanish speakers and cultural inertia for no perceptible benefit.
The word was probably coined (the exact origin is unclear) and is definitely used by Latino communities in academia. What probably happened is that non-Latino folk didn't interact with any Latinos outside of the circles, saw these particular communities using Latinx, and adopted it without considering what other Latino people wanted. That's an issue in itself, but it's slightly different than one where it's exclusively white people forcing Latinos to use the term in these spaces.
Yes, it has roots in the US, but in Latino communities in the US. Non-Latino people started copying it after seeing it in such communities. I"m going to guess many, but not all Latinos who use it for their communities also speak Spanish. But you're right that it's purpose is primarily for use in English.
You can definitely make the argument that it's academic Orientalism, but it isn't only coming from white academic circles in the US but Latino ones as well.
There is harm in using it to refer to all people from Latin America regardless of our preference. It's mislabeling. I don't think anyone is saying "ban this term" and if certain people identify with it more power to them, the issue is its mainstream use to define everyone from Latin America when only a minority identifies with the term, it doesn't work in our languages, and there are already Spanish gender neutral options like the e or @.
No, it's not. To say so would be to erase non-binary people who use the term Latinx or other gender-neutral terms like Latine. It's possible to have a discussion about when and how to use these words. We can talk about recognizing what individual non-binary people in Latino communities would like to be called when using singular nouns. We can also talk about what terms to use when referencing a mixed-gender group of people.
Quite a thing to say in a thread with mostly spanish speaking users
There's no harm in it if you're willing to accept that a subset of American Spanish speakers will adopt the term to identify themselves in a country of majority English speakers. It's not about you, the person who is not a member of that cultural exchange unless you think that 3% number somehow represents a threat.
I see zero insistence that latinx be inserted into anything other than discussions of immigrant communities within the boundaries of the United States. The pew survey is explicitly scoped that way:
So this narrative of how it's being "shoved down the throats" of all LatAm citizens or being used as a crowbar into cultures where the pronunciation feels extremely unnatural is baseless.
Discussing "the mainstream" as having implicit value over concerns of a minority when by and large this is an issue for an existing minority (the non-binary US Latin community) isn't a very convincing argument and ignores all the context of the tweet and the study performed. This isn't a zero-sum argument.
Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone but could it not be that many Hispanic people feel pressured to use Latinx when around white people in academia? I've personally had fellow Hispanic people tell me that they only use the term around white people (peers and/or professors) because they feel this pressure to come off as "proper."
Surely at only 3% adoption the likelihood of such social pressure in academia is vanishingly small.
I mean you are free to try and refute the post I quoted and explain just exactly how the positions that many folks in this thread have taken haven't been made in callous disregard of nonbinary people, if not tantamount to outright mockery.
lol
Poll results aren't surprising. I've only seen the term used online, and usually by white people. I don't see it catching on outside of the internet since 'Latinx' sounds stupid when you actually say it out loud in Spanish which just emphasizes that it's a forced term. Latine works much better as a gender-neutral word.
I'd rather we stop this "LatinX" bullshit before it becomes a thing and push for a more natural sounding alternative instead. You know, something that you can actually pronounce in the language of the people you are trying to categorize. "Latine" remains the best option for an inclusive word that still sounds good in Spanish.
