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Speculation: There may be more news articles, TV segments, and online comments complaining about "Latinx" than there are people who have ever used the term to refer to themselves or others. It's never been a popular term among any group, not even among people who want Spanish to be more gender-neutral ("Latine" and the -e suffix seems to be more popular among them, probably on account of it being pronounceable.)
Plus, it's worth pointing out that there are some Latin Americans who prefer the term "Latinx" and use it to describe themselves. Not many, of course, but not zero. So accusations that it's only used by Anglophones are wrong.
It appears to be a popular word in styleguides. It has been adopted by journalists, thus you mostly see it from people with authoritative voices.
It seems to me the majority of the group should get to pick the labels used to describe the group. And since that hasn't happened yet with latinos, it’s unfair to use ‘Latinx’ without their permission.
The analogue is the F and N words for people in those communities. Both of those words were forced on those communities by people outside those communities.
Forcing this label on latinos, without their consent, is an act of violence and furthers the long-standing marginalization of that community.
It seems hyperbolic to compare slurs to a word for a group that's merely unpopular.
The framing of Latinx as a word unwillingly forced onto Latin Americans by outsiders is exactly why I brought up that some people use it to describe themselves.
Thing is, there are also many Latinos who are complaining about it being forced on them and/or treat it as a form of cultural imperialism (not necessarily in these exact terms, but e.g. "anglos are mutilating my language"). So it can be offensive either way, and it's down to how many people you're willing to offend.
I think its far to early in the etymological lifespan of words to make that claim.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has used her position to push use of the term so it's not exactly fringe.
it's not fringe, it's a subsection of progressives.
I'm glad there were so many articles about this; it made clear to a lot of people who thought they had to say "latinx" to be inclusive, didn't actually need to do so (it seems like lots of people want external guidance about what they can and cannot say and somehow there was a message that latinx was inclusive).
"it seems like lots of people want external guidance about what they can and cannot say"
Could this be because they've seen others socially ostracized or persecuted at work for unknowingly, innocently, violating whatever taboo progressives invented 5 minutes ago? They're afraid. I don't blame them.
"Filipinx" introduces non-gendered terminology in an already ungendered language, using letters not even in the Tagalog language. I don't know any Filipinos who use it.
Not only is it ignorant, it's literally racist white cultural and linguistic imperialism. Wasn't the enslavement, rape and murder of my ancestors over centuries enough for you all already?
Nobody offline has ever said "latinx" out loud except to ask what it is.
Not to diminish the very real issues these ideas attempt to resolve, but in some ways political correctness is just as much of a hallucination as anything ChatGPT spits out. That's what's so terrifying and divisive about it.
I was watching a Disney+ show (aimed at young teens) with a Latina main character and she used the term. Took me immediately out of the show, because it made me think there must not have been any Latinos on the writing staff.
What show?
I forget the exact name, but it's the "National Treasure" show that's a sequel to the movies. It was dumb but kind of fun.
I heard it in an All Hands meeting only recently, while talking about our DEI and hiring processes. It confused me for a second, but then I realized what word they were saying. But, to your point, it probably confused me because it's so rare to actually hear someone say it.
Is there a real issue? El carro is a problem? La casa is a very real issue?
It can be a problem wrt occupations and other descriptions of people if there's no non-gender-neutral term to describe them - people then tend to fall back onto the whatever their cultural stereotypes are when gendering those, effectively reinforcing them. For example, when "engineer" is "el ingeniero" rather than "la ingeniera" by default.
But there are certainly much better ways to solve it that don't involve bolting on things that are alien to the language phonotactics.
It is for people who find binary gendered terms in language offensive.
This is just hilarious to me because I imagine Spanish is like French where every word and pronoun, including the sky, a windshield and a machine gun is gendered.
It's basically like saying "we're going to be inclusive of you by calling your native tongue offensively sexist." Gee, I wonder why it's not popular.
seems circular
Is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez nobody?
My wife is a native Spanish speaker and an ardent feminist to her core.
It has always really bothered her about Spanish that (for example) you refer to one million women as “ellas” but one million men OR one million women and one man as “ellos.”
Despite this, she just cannot get behind -x endings in Spanish.
My wife is 2nd generation. Her father once asked "What's Latinx?"
He thought the notion that Latin grammar had become politically incorrect as absolutely insane and offensive.
While well meaning, I believe a lot of the ideas in vogue with the identity movement is harmful to the cause of equity and inclusion. It just doesn't sell to working class people regardless of their cultural background. Which is an impediment to obtaining the political power needed to create actual change beyond arguing about the right words to use.
I think a lot of those things are extremely frivolous, a waste of time, and very silly at best. These aren't things that appeal to the working class. If some rando is using me for some weird political or social clout, I wouldn't be impressed.
The trouble is, well-meaning plus controlling equals not-well-meaning.
I switched to the 50% rule. If the group has more than 50% females I use "ellas" in spite of the official rule.
I have a workgroup with 3 females and 2 males (including me), and I call it "La reunión con lAs chicAs."
Two thoughts here:
1. If the English language needed a gender-neutral term for Latino, we could have just used "Latin", which has the triple benefit of already being an English word, already being gender neutral, and already having the desired meaning.
2. While I'm grateful for the pushback against renaming other ethnic groups without their input or consent, this is the exact same origin story as the term "Native American".
I haven't looked into the history personally, but heard once that the original term used (by outsiders, of course) was "Latin". But because it doesn't fit well into the gendered Spanish language, it was disliked by native speakers, who went on to organically derive Latino/Latina as replacements.
If true, that makes the English-speaking movement to replace Latino/Latina with Latinx doubly ridiculous.
I'm currently in Colombia and have been here many times for several months at a time. I too have never heard of "latinX" outside of online diatribes from Americans
> ‘Latinx’ has failed to gain buy-in from the people it’s supposed to empower.
The hubris... We have assigned a new name to some other group, whether they want it or not, in order to empower them. Why don't they feel empowered by us imposing a name on them?
I live in Central America and the only time I hear or see this monstrosity is in NPR reports. Use this word if you want to remove any shred of remaining doubt about what a tool you are.
I don't think homeless people call themselves 'a person experiencing homelessness' either.
But my (limited) experience is that they don’t use homeless either. The few people I knew used to talk about “sleeping rough” or something like that.
In autism land (which is a cool place you all should visit) there's a discussion about 'person first language'. I haven't made my mind up either way.
Is this the logic whereby "colored people" is an offensive slur while "people of color" is the preferred nomenclature?
My primary complaint with this stuff is the same as my primary complaint with corporate/marketing/bureaucratic jargon: it's just ugly and overcomplicated language. I wish we could speak plainly instead of dressing up our language in ugly fashions.
One thing to remember is that there’s also a generational aspect: an older friend mentioned that basically everyone his age referred to themselves as Black, there was a middle group favoring people of color, and the younger people he knew were back to Black.
My general preference is using whatever term someone prefers for themselves but that doesn’t scale to large groups of any sort.
nobody anywhere who is latin american uses this term.
They don’t use the term because they don’t use “latino” which is mainly an American word with a context that mainly makes sense in the US.
But “woke” latinos definitely use “x” and “@“ in this way like “hola todxs” and “bienvenidxs”.
This is the main thing missing from this conversation. Pointing out that a Mexican in Mexico doesn’t call themself a latino is different than claiming “x” isn’t used as a neuter token in latam. Anyone in a group chat with cosmopolitan latinos under 25 would know that “x” is in fact being used.
Or just search Twitter for “todxs”.
How is it pronounced in verbal communication, though?
In Washington, D.C., I haven't heard anyone say it in conversation.
Perhaps the reason is that, once you hear it's pronounced "luh-tinks," you can't read or think of it any other way.
That pronunciation is for lack of a better word, the minority.
https://twitter.com/REMEZCLA/status/958714776615620609?ref_s...
In other news, x is supposed to be pronounced either sh or h(j). Don Quishote or Mehico (originally Meshicl.) Latinish still gets my vote.
Regardless of your opinion of the word, a descriptivist will acknowledge that a subset of people ARE using the word, and that its use should be documented. And thus, needs a pronunciation. Even if at the moment it appears to be mostly tribal signaling.
Who should I believe, an editorial in the WSJ, where all I can read is the headline and some introductory text, before I hit a paywall?
Or a search of the Miami New Times web site at miaminewtimes.com where I can read about:
"Latinx Art Sessions Explores What It Means to Be Latinx in the Art World " - https://www.miaminewtimes.com/arts/things-to-do-in-miami-lat... and here's that museum using "Latinx" at https://www.pamm.org/en/collection/?term_id=1347 .
"Latinx Playwright, Cast, and Director of GableStage's Fade Recognize Themselves in Story" - https://www.miaminewtimes.com/arts/things-to-do-in-miami-fad... (Teo Castellanos is quoted as using 'Latinx' twice. He lives in Miami.)
"Gay8. Celebrating the intersectionality of being Latinx and queer, Gay8 takes over Calle Ocho on February 19. Expect everything from drag shows to live music and dance parties as you celebrate every color of the rainbow." - https://www.miaminewtimes.com/arts/things-to-do-in-miami-cul... .
Or a search of that event's web site, where https://www.gay8festival.com/news/gay8-festival-weekend-retu... says "The festival is set to attract over 80,000 guests and 70 vendors, making it the largest Hispanic/Latino/Latinx LGBTQ hosted festival in the nation."
To be clear, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx highlights the various controversies in using the term, and how only "2% of US residents of Latin American descent in the US use Latinx", and how it's mostly a US term, with Latine more common in the Spanish-speaking world.
But 2% is not "Nobody", and I easily found counter-examples of people in Miami using it, making me distrust the editorial I am unable to read.
solo los pinches pochos usan este gonorrea