Latinx is a term made for people in the Latin American community meant to be gender neutral for individuals of Latin-American descent. Even though it was made to do good, there has been back lash throughout its history.
According to Pew Research Center, 23% of Hispanic adults have heard of it and only 3% use it. Many people had even felt offended by the word, one of the reasons being because they feel that it replaces Latino from the Spanish vocabulary.
The National Review said that Politico made a survey asking Latinos if they found it offensive and the results showed that 40% felt the term is offensive and 30% said they would not support the term neither.
The Washington Post mentioned people on social media like Facebook, said that the word anglicizes the Spanish language, erases their own heritage and they fought for their gender to be recognized as Latina.
So the question is, should we all use Latinx? Due to the amount of hate it gets and it has already become an official term, anyone who wants to use it can and anyone doesn’t want to doesn’t have to.
However, if the word will be used, the call to action should be using the word as a term in English, but also using Latino and Latina when talking about a specific person and just “Latino” when referring to a group of people in Spanish.
It is like saying Latin American in English and Latino Americano in Spanish. Even though it sounds absurd to most people, it is important to have a name that is equal to all in the community.
The term came about online in 2004 to be more gender neutral to all Hispanics. It also made its first appearance in academic literature in 2013, in a Puerto Rican psychological periodical to challenge the gender binaries encoded in the Spanish language.
The term had been used in social media by activists, students and academics that want advocate for people of non-binary and gender-queer.
The ‘x’ was brought in to not only be a substitute for the letters ‘o’ and ‘a,’ but also to take recognition in the indigenous communities.
According to Wikipedia, there had also been changes to other terms as well. The other terms were Chicanx/Xicanx instead Chicano which describes a Mexican-American, Mexicanx, Latine, Lateen and Latin@.
Though they were made to show more acceptance to non-binary Latinos, it only fueled the anger of the ones that despised with the word since they already dislike Latinx.
In all honesty, the attempt to make the other words have more equal meaning is respected but it seemed like the people who came up with it was doing too much.
Critics say that it does not follow the traditional Spanish grammar, difficult to pronounce and disrespectful to the language.The Royal Spanish Army also does not recognize the suffix ‘x’ as well.
On top of this, students at Columbia University had also changed the name of Hispanic Heritage Month to Latinx Hispanic Heritage Month. Even though this was an official change, it is still not being used.
In 2021, a Democratic Hispanic made a poll that showed 2% refer to themselves as Latinx, 68% called themselves Hispanic, 21% called themselves Latino or Latina, and 40% said that they were offended by the term and will support politicians and organizations less if they use it.
So who is Latinx? Anyone who says they are and anyone who says they are not.
