Pew Research: Latinx Used by Just 3% of U.S. Hispanics. About One-in-Four Have Heard of It

[WhySoDevious]

There are more than two gender identities, and someone in another thread brought up a good point that Latin@ can be tough or impossible for text-to-speech programs. Which I imagine were the motivations to move towards Latine (in Latin America) and Latinx (in the United States) instead.

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But the "gender" in Spanish words does not refer to the gender of a person, but to the "gender" of the word it is referencing.

Un hombre latino
Una mujer latina
Una persona latina
Un individuo latino.

"Un individuo latine" makes no sense because the gender refers to the word "individuo", not the gender identity of the person.

 

[Apzu]

So another thread to discuss the latinx term? I just hope it is better than the last one...


I tend to prefer latine, but if there are people who want to use latinx to refer to themselves, that's not wrong. More power to you. The problem though is how the term latinx is used as a general term to refer to many different countries and cultures and that once more it seems like a term created by an outsider looking down on us. And as someone already pointed out, it's not like there was no term for that before in english. There was already "latin american" which isn't gendered and as such there wouldn't even be a need for this discussion had they used the old term.

Slightly off-topic rant:
Also, if we are going to discuss about what word is better, why not just american? I mean, out of all continents, only one had its demonym stolen to refer to a single country. We don't talk about other countries in Africa as "north africans" just because there is a country named South Africa. We still use the word arabs in English to talk about an ethnicity, even with a country named Saudi Arabia. So why not americans for anyone who was born on the American continent? The US amounts to only 22% of the American continent land territory and has just about 1/3 of its population and it gets to be called just "American". Latin America on the other hand refers to more than 60% of the population and land of the continent and, still, we are the ones that need an adjective to clarify ourselves.

Edit: but I guess this is off-topic and derailing the thread.

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Fair point

 

[MrNelson]

What term should be used?

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Latine is the term my girlfriend (who's from PR) says is used.

 

[Deleted member 3208]

Also, if we are going to discuss about what word is better, why not just american? I mean, out of all continents, only one had its demonym stolen to refer to a single country. We don't talk about other countries in Africa as "north africans" just because there is a country named South Africa. We still use the word arabs in English to talk about an ethnicity, even with a country named Saudi Arabia. So why not americans for anyone who was born on the American continent? The US amounts to only 22% of the American continent land territory and has just about 1/3 of its population and it gets to be called just "American". Latin America on the other hand refers to more than 60% of the population and land of the continent and, still, we are the ones that need an adjective to clarify ourselves.

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I have also seen people refer to US citizens as North Americans, as if Canada or Mexico don't exist.

Edit: but I guess this is off-topic and derailing the thread.

 

[Malverde]

I use Latinx when speaking about the ethnicity. I spent the entirety of my commencement when I got my masters degree in a conversation with a classmate discussing the use of the term. She was also Latinx and thought it was bullshit. That said, I definitely have met plenty of non queer Latinx folks outside of academia who use the term too so I don't buy the "it is only white academics and queer latino/as" argument.

However, when I am describing myself I will use Chicano so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

 

[timshundo]

So many are quick to react to this as a final nail in the coffin for the term. I'm Latino/Chicano but I like using Latinx to refer to the community as a whole and have 0 problem with someone being Latinx.

 

[Pau]

But the "gender" in Spanish words does not refer to the gender of a person, but to the "gender" of the word it is referencing.

Un hombre latino
Una mujer latina
Una persona latina
Un individuo latino.

"Un individuo latine" makes no sense because the gender refers to the word "individuo", not the gender identity of the person.

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So where would you consider even Latin@ to be acceptable? For example, if I identify as a non-binary Colombian and want to say the equivalent of "soy Colombiana" in a way that references my (non-binary) gender, what should I use?

 

[-Tetsuo-]

I have never heard this term in my life and I live in Texas.

 

[Pau]

Also, if we are going to discuss about what word is better, why not just american? I mean, out of all continents, only one had its demonym stolen to refer to a single country. We don't talk about other countries in Africa as "north africans" just because there is a country named South Africa. We still use the word arabs in English to talk about an ethnicity, even with a country named Saudi Arabia. So why not americans for anyone who was born on the American continent? The US amounts to only 22% of the American continent land territory and has just about 1/3 of its population and it gets to be called just "American". Latin America on the other hand refers to more than 60% of the population and land of the continent and, still, we are the ones that need an adjective to clarify ourselves.

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I've been with you since I can remember. On my first trip back to Colombia after immigrating, I yelled "We arrived in America!" when the plane landed in Colombia. My parents laughed at me to tell me that America (in English) referred to only the United States. :(

 

[Masterz1337]

Is there nothing more racist than white people telling another culture that an element of their culture is bad and backwards and deciding to change it for them to make it more "civil"?

All my Latino friends hate the term and hate people are trying to dictate how their words and language need to be changed. It's really borderline "white savior" style bullshit.

 

[Zombegoast]

What term should be used?

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Latin Americans?

 

[BAD]

We do have Latine for that. That also sounds much better in Spanish. Also, it assumed that Latinos is not gendered in its application. It's grammatical gender.

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Isn't Latinas gendered?

 

[BAD]

Latin Americans?

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what about people who are not in the USA? and saying the term translated to Spanish?

Latine seems interesting to me

 

[Chadtwo]

It's almost like most woke culture is by white people for white people as a performative way of looking and feeling woke while doing absolutely nothing to participate in changing the material conditions of racial minorities, gender non-binary or poor people

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Latine is the term my girlfriend (who's from PR) says is used.

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How do you pronounce Latine? Especially the "e"?

 

[Tochtli79]

what about people who are not in the USA? and saying the term translated to Spanish?

Latine seems interesting to me

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As another poster pointed out, "America" is not the US. "Latin American" doesn't have anything to do with the US. In Spanish, "latinoamericanos" is more common than "latino", though tbh we don't talk about ourselves in that way that often. We refer to ourselves mostly regarding our country of origin or ethnic background (white, mestizo, aboriginal, black, Asian, etc.). That Latin American homogeneity that Westerners seem to believe exists doesn't.

 

[Noctis]

I'm from NYC never heard anyone used this term, I'm Dominican so if someone addresses me with that term I'll probably roll my eyes lol but do you tho.

 

[SubvertedTrope]

White ppl swing and a miss, again.

 

[MrNelson]

How do you pronounce Latine? Especially the "e"?

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La-teen-ay

 

[RockTiddies]

Latinx and latin@ are ableist terms because word to speech translators mess up when those are type or are not recognized.

 

[JaseC64]

I heard its only used in academic groups? Us normal latinos ain't that prestige so I guess thats why we don't? Lol

 

[Soran]

Is stupid and only seen to exist in USA. People living in South America use Latine when they want to be inclusive.

 

[Tbm24]

I'm from NYC never heard anyone used this term, I'm Dominican so if someone addresses me with that term I'll probably roll my eyes lol but do you tho.

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Honestly just need to listen to the radio stations over here then. I'm blanking on the name of the station since it's been a hot minute but LatinX was used heavily during radio spots with the DJ announcing guests and other shit along with new songs/artists.

I'll note, these radio spots and the DJ were speaking English. There's also a Sirius XM station that does the same thing, Latin music with DJs speaking mostly english and using LatinX like candy. This was back in like 2016 as I had access to Sirius for a year.

I think it's safe to say it's not gonna be something you hear said when someone is talking to you in Spanish. I haven't thus far in my limited scope of spanish speakers over here.

 

[haziq]

I feel like well-intentioned attempts to neutralize gendered language can't be forced. Language tends to move at its own speed. Sometimes it's an overnight change; other times it's a generational shift that needs to happen.

The problem with social media is that it's the classic thing that Bill Maher once referenced (and so happens to be the only thing he's been right on in this regard): Don't get mad that people don't get it at the same time you do; either you want perfection or change, and change sometimes takes a while. If you want terms like Latinx or BIPOC (a term I personally found to be awkward), just be sincere about it, and stop using social media to be performative about your wokeness/progressiveness.

 

[Reverse Giraffe]

? Brazilians are not Hispanic

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nor are they latinos.

 

[OhSatan]

nor are they latinos.

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Quick contact the academia portuguese is not a romance language.

 

[Swiggins]

I have only EVER seen Latnix used on college campuses by white progressives trying to 'help'.

My latino friends don't like the term.

 

[Quantum Leap]

I'm afro-mexican and I will never use latinx, sounds like a forced word.

 

[StrangeRoboMemory]

I'm Hispanic and have never used this term, and never heard it in real life, only on the internet.

 

[Pau]

Is there nothing more racist than white people telling another culture that an element of their culture is bad and backwards and deciding to change it for them to make it more "civil"?

All my Latino friends hate the term and hate people are trying to dictate how their words and language need to be changed. It's really borderline "white savior" style bullshit.

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And if those white people originally adopted the term after seeing some Latino people using it? The issue then isn't that white people created a term to fix an element they thought was backwards in another culture, but rather that white people adopted and pushed the term on all Latinos based on use by a minority of the group.

If we don't want this to happen again, it's probably constructive to point this out so that white people don''t adopt stuff based on interactions with a small minority. That they need to consider and interact with all parts of the community.

And it's also worth pointing out to to make minority communities like Latinos in academia more aware of their power. When they popularize terms like this, because of their relative proximity to power, they need to recognize and account for the harm of adopting terms that are unintentionally but ultimately noninclusive.

 

[mikeys_legendary]

If I'm being honest, I kind of find the term offensive on a weird level.

Not because I disagree with the reasons the word "Latinx" was created, but more so because it just sounds like such an anglicized bastardization for lack of a better word.

I probably wouldn't have a problem with the word if it was "Latinu" or "Latiné" but that "x" just doesn't hit my Latin ears right.

 

[Pau]

Oh, and some interesting breakdowns for the survey.

Out of those who have heard of it, a a minority but non-insignificant portion of Latino Americans think it should be used to identify the population and not just an individual, but most prefer other terms.

The way the original statistic was reported made it sound like using it and thinking it should be used were mutually exclusive categories. At least that's how I originally read it, so I was a bit surprised to see this breakdown.

 

[Manmademan]

Being honest, I had this discussion with hispanics and latinos I know locally.

They all hate it, consider it something imposed on them by white people, and have explicitly asked me NOT to use it. I've gotta respect those wishes, even if I'm online.

 

[cmalex23]

LatinX will go the way of Chicano/Chicana. It's not inclusive to Spanish speakers and politicized. I personally prefer Mexican-American for myself.

 

[Tochtli79]

And if those white people originally adopted the term after seeing some Latino people using it? The issue then isn't that white people created a term to fix an element they thought was backwards in another culture, but rather that white people adopted and pushed the term on all Latinos based on use by a minority of the group.

If we don't want this to happen again, it's probably constructive to point this out so that white people don''t adopt stuff based on interactions with a small minority. That they need to consider and interact with all parts of the community.

And it's also worth pointing out to to make minority communities like Latinos in academia more aware of their power. When they popularize terms like this, because of their relative proximity to power, they need to recognize and account for the harm of adopting terms that are unintentionally but ultimately noninclusive.

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This is where I'm at since being educated in the last thread regarding the origins of the term. The Latinx people identifying as such are perfectly free to do so and I support their use the term to describe themselves. I just wish it hadn't become so popular with people outside the community trying to use it as yet another term to bunch us all together. Because if I'm being honest I've never really been comfortable with "Latino" or "Hispanic" either. They're all terms rooted in the need for Westerners to classify and "other" us while ignoring our diversity. I much prefer to refer to myself as Mexican or mestizo, Latin American if I must, in that order.

 

[rusty chrome]

It's an American word. Latinos aren't using it. It's not a Latino word.

 

[HStallion]

Just shorten the entire word to Lats

 

[Deleted member 46958]

Tell you something- Latinx sounds odd and it, as a Latino, creates an odd disconnect for me. I've never heard any of the Latinos I've been around utter the word before. Except one-and she went to Penn State, was raised in Long Island, and was half white.

And that should tell you a lot.

 

[golguin]

Mexican American here. I have never heard any friends or family use the term to describe themselves. If I'm being asked and I don't see Mexican American as an option then I'll go with Latino and then Hispanic. Chicano would be at bottom of list. Nothing else after that.

 

[CarpeDeezNutz]

Mexican here, this shit sounds too woke for its own good. I have only heard of Latinx on here and no where else.

 

[Lant_War]

I've personally only ever seen it used on the internet, people pushing for inclusive language here use latine (or -e in general as a gender neutral pronoun) which serves the exact same purpose but actually looks, sounds and functions like it should on the spanish language. However, I think it was developed by hispanic-americans to describe themselves in english? So if people want to identify with it, who am I to say they shouldn't 🤷‍♂️

But the "gender" in Spanish words does not refer to the gender of a person, but to the "gender" of the word it is referencing.

Un hombre latino
Una mujer latina
Una persona latina
Un individuo latino.

"Un individuo latine" makes no sense because the gender refers to the word "individuo", not the gender identity of the person.

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Yep, here in Uruguay everyone has "Uruguaya" (female version of uruguayan) under their nationality in the new IDs since nacionalidad is a female-gendered word. Confused me a bit when I saw it on my ID, lol

 

[hateradio]

It's a newish word that comes from academic circles, so of course most have never heard of it.

Additionally, I sense that most people who speak Spanish/Portuguese/etc. are probably not aware of non-binary persons or the inclusion of saying "Latin@."

I personally had not heard "Latine," although I had heard the -e ending as a neutral gender ending.

However, I do think as time progresses, that it will start to take traction.

25% for a word that hadn't been used much two years ago, is a good share, I think.


Maybe "Latinx" will become the English neutral version (like womxn) while Latine will become the neutral version of Spanish/Portuguese/etc.

 

[golguin]

And if those white people originally adopted the term after seeing some Latino people using it? The issue then isn't that white people created a term to fix an element they thought was backwards in another culture, but rather that white people adopted and pushed the term on all Latinos based on use by a minority of the group.

If we don't want this to happen again, it's probably constructive to point this out so that white people don''t adopt stuff based on interactions with a small minority. That they need to consider and interact with all parts of the community.

And it's also worth pointing out to to make minority communities like Latinos in academia more aware of their power. When they popularize terms like this, because of their relative proximity to power, they need to recognize and account for the harm of adopting terms that are unintentionally but ultimately noninclusive.

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The question becomes then why do several people in academia somehow wield more power than an OVERWHELMING majority of common folk who continue to say why the term is an issue to describe our group. An individual can describe themselves or their community in whatever way they like, but entire cultures and countries have no obligation to use a term preferred by a small group.
It's very problematic to see people continue to push the term and then use academia as a shield to silence an oppressed majority on how they should or should not call themselves.

Do you see how that's a problem?

 

[Nida]

I learned about this term from younger Hispanic YA authors. But it doesn't seem to be embraced by many.

 

[hwalker84]

I have never heard this term in my life and I live in Texas.

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And we asked the two Latinx people in our chat and they both just heard about it.

 

[Pau]

This is where I'm at since being educated in the last thread regarding the origins of the term. The Latinx people identifying as such are perfectly free to do so and I support their use the term to describe themselves. I just wish it hadn't become so popular with people outside the community trying to use it as yet another term to bunch us all together. Because if I'm being honest I've never really been comfortable with "Latino" or "Hispanic" either. They're all terms rooted in the need for Westerners to classify and "other" us while ignoring our diversity. I much prefer to refer to myself as Mexican or mestizo, Latin American if I must, in that order.

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I get you, and those aspects of Latino and Hispanic are definitely there.

For me it's really context dependent. So I appreciate a more inclusive term as a means of solidarity that might not exist if I stuck to just my nationality.

The question becomes then why do several people in academia somehow wield more power than an OVERWHELMING majority of common folk who continue to say why the term is an issue to describe our group. An individual can describe themselves or their community in whatever way they like, but entire cultures and countries have no obligation to use a term preferred by a small group.
It's very problematic to see people continue to push the term and then use academia as a shield to silence an oppressed majority on how they should or should not call themselves.

Do you see how that's a problem?

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I guess I'm not explaining myself well enough. Where did I say that it wasn't a problem or where did you get the impression that I'm using academia as a shield? I'm saying the exact opposite, that it is a problem, and that we need to address it. In the very post you quoted as I said that white people need to learn to not adopt terms like this based on the use of a minority in academia. But saying it's only white people using the word ignores part of where the problem comes from...

I think it's rather obvious why Latinos in academia have wielded more power over language than Latino folks outside of academia. White academics saw their Latino colleagues adopting the term and start copying them without thinking or realizing that they are following the lead of a minority. (Because let's be honest, these white academics probably don't really interact with any Latinos outside of that circle.) And it snowballed from there. Once again, I'm not saying it's right. I'm trying to lay out the process so that we can stop it from happening again and also work to fix it.

 

[Magni]

LatinX always reminded me of African-American. A word that came of good intentions but sounds absolutely terrible. I saw chic@s everywhere when I lived in Chile (~7 years ago), but for both text-to-speech and non-binary inclusivity reasons, chiques seems like the right replacement for that.

I guess I can see the argument for LatinX was if it was an established English word (the English words "German" or "Japanese" sound nothing like they do in those languages, it's hardly a rare occurance), but given that nobody uses it, might as well use Latine as the inclusive noun form. For the adjective, we already have Latin in English. Latin America. Latin music.

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 ;).

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There is écriture inclusive in French, and it is ugly. It's sad, because we should have a more inclusive language, but there's no easy transition like there is in Spanish.

As a french man, male being default has always been trash and I always welcome neutral alternatives. The X is clumsy, I think latin and latine sound better while working as neutral.

Also this is a bullshit excuse. Might as well go full on AKSHUALLY.

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It's really sad when you read up the history of it. Male wasn't always default. It used to be the proximity rule:
Un chapeau et une fleur bleues.
Une fleur et un chapeau bleus.

 

[HammerOfThor]

Every single person I know of Hispanic descent hates this term. Its white people doing the usual "I know what's best for you" crap.

 

[Antrax]

The question becomes then why do several people in academia somehow wield more power than an OVERWHELMING majority of common folk who continue to say why the term is an issue to describe our group.

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I mean, based on this article, it seems like they don't really wield more power over the common folk. If they did, then the academic term would probably be polling higher than 3% lol

Latine is interesting. Languages all over need to be better about including everyone. It's not like there are no Hispanic non-binary people. English is almost there, once we get people to finally stop being weird about singular "they."

 

[golguin]

I get you, and those aspects of Latino and Hispanic are definitely there.

For me it's really context dependent. So I appreciate a more inclusive term as a means of solidarity that might not exist if I stuck to just my nationality.


I guess I'm not explaining myself well enough. Where did I say that it wasn't a problem or where did you get the impression that I'm using academia as a shield? I'm saying the exact opposite, that it is a problem, and that we need to address it. In the very post you quoted as I said that white people need to learn to not adopt terms like this based on the use of a minority in academia. But saying it's only white people using the word ignores part of where the problem comes from...

I think it's rather obvious why Latinos in academia have wielded more power over language than Latino folks outside of academia. White academics saw their Latino colleagues adopting the term and start copying them without thinking or realizing that they are following the lead of a minority. (Because let's be honest, these white academics probably don't really interact with any Latinos outside of that circle.) And it snowballed from there. Once again, I'm not saying it's right. I'm trying to lay out the process so that we can stop it from happening again and also work to fix it.

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I didn't mean that you specifically are using academia as a shield, but people are generally using it as a way to deflect from the issue. People comment on the fact that "white liberals" are pushing a term they created. People counter that it's origins may actually come from some academic source that may or may not have its roots in the United States or maybe a Latin source in an English publication or even a native Spanish publication in a Latin American country.

The origin doesn't really matter when various cultural populations reject the term outright. You can't pressure a culture to accept the term because you can trace the origin to a non imperialist nation.

People need to stop telling others what they need to accept or change and instead listen to why it's not a term that should be used to label people from various countries with different languages and cultures.

People can use whatever term they want for themselves. Going beyond that is going to receive pushback and that pushback needs to be understood and accepted. That's the main problem.