Latinx

Latinx is a gender-neutral neologism, sometimes used instead of Latino or Latina to refer to people of Latin American cultural or ethnic identity in the United States. The ⟨-x⟩ suffix replaces the standard ⟨-o/-a⟩ ending of nouns and adjectives that are typical of grammatical gender in Spanish. Its plural is Latinxs.

"Latina/o", "Latine", and "Mexicanx" redirect here. For the sailing vessel, see Lateen. For the people of Mexico, see Mexicans. For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation), Latina (disambiguation), and Latino (disambiguation).

The term was first seen online around 2004. It has later been used in social media by activists, students, and academics who seek to advocate for individuals living on the borderlines of gender identity. The term became widespread in US universities by 2014. Words used for similar purposes include Chicanx, Latin@ and Latine.

Reactions to the term have been mixed. Supporters say it engenders greater acceptance among non-binary Latinos by being gender-neutral and thus inclusive of all genders.[1] Critics say the term does not follow traditional grammar, is difficult to pronounce, and is disrespectful toward conventional Spanish.[2] Both supporters and detractors point to linguistic imperialism as a reason for respectively supporting or opposing the use of the term. A 2019 poll found that use of Latinx has grown to 2% nationwide in the United States (with a 5% margin of error).[3] The Royal Spanish Academy style guide does not recognize the suffix -x.[4]

Pronunciation

Pronunciations of Latinx documented in dictionaries include /ləˈtiːnɛks, læ-, lɑː-, -nəks, ˈlætɪnɛks/ lə-TEE-neks, la(h)-, -⁠nəks, LAT-in-eks.[5][6][7][8] Other variants respelled ad hoc as "Latins", "La-tinks", or "Latin-equis" have also been reported.[9][10] Editors at Merriam-Webster surmised that "more than likely, there was little consideration for how it was supposed to be pronounced when it was created".[11]

Group identity

Latinx is a group identity used to describe individuals in the United States who have Latin American roots.[12][1] The social category is also referred to by other names, including Hispanic, Latino, Latina/o, and Latin@. In the 2000s, the social category of Latinos was analyzed in one of three ways, as ethnoracial, as a cultural ethnic group, or as familial-historical.[13]

The ethnoracial approach is contextual, highlighting the analyses that Latinos come from a variety of different races, and from different parts of Latin America, which span all the standard US racial categories. This is the approach taken by Latinx philosopher Linda Martín Alcoff. What Latinx means in a particular ethnoracial context depends on the region one is in and the provenance of the population - from one or another Latin American country or group of countries - Cubans, Mexicans, and so on. Because of this variability and complexity, Alcoff refers to Latinos as an ethnorace as, depending on context, Latinos function sometimes as an ethnic group, and sometimes as a racial group.[13]

History

Origins and early usage

The term Latinx emerged from American Spanish in the early 21st century.[14] The origins of the term are unclear.[15] According to Google Trends, it was first seen online in 2004,[16][17][18] and in scholarly work the "x" in Latinx was initially introduced by a Puerto Rican psychology periodical "to challenge the gender binaries encoded in the Spanish Language".[15] In the U.S. it was first used in activist and LGBT circles as a way to expand on earlier attempts at gender-inclusive forms of the grammatically masculine Latino, such as Latino/a and Latin@.[17] Latinx offers an alternative to the gender binaries inherent to the formulations Latina/o and Latin@.[16][11] Between 2004 and 2014 Latinx did not receive broad usage or attention[16] but has become commonly used by activists and in higher education and the popular media who seek to advocate for individuals on the borderlines of gender identity;[19] it is used as a gender inclusive term denoting people of Latin American descent.[11]

The term emerged in response "to circumstances in which existent language structures fail to articulate value in appropriate ways."[20][21]

Use of "x" to expand language can be traced to the word Chicano, which had an "x" added to the front of the word, making it "Xicano". Scholars have identified this shift as part of the movement to empower people of Mexican origin in the U.S. and also as a means of emphasizing that the origins of the letter X and term Chicano are linked to the Indigenous Nahuatl language.[15][22] The "x" has also been added to the end of the term Chicano, making it "Chicanx." An example of this occurred at Columbia University where students changed their student group name from Chicano Caucus to "Chicanx Caucus". Later Columbia University changed the name of Latino Heritage Month to Latinx Hispanic Heritage Month.[15] Salinas and Lozano (2017) stated that the term is influenced by Mexican indigenous communities that have a third gender role, such as Juchitán de Zaragoza, Oaxaca (see also: Gender system § Juchitán, Oaxaca, Mexico).[19] The term often refers specifically to LGBT people or to young people. Brian Latimer, a producer at MSNBC who identifies as nonbinary, says that the application of the term "shows a generational divide in the Hispanic community".[16]:60 Since 2016, the term "has been sweeping across college campuses."[23]

Public awareness

Since 2014, the term Latinx has grown in usage in the US, Latin America, and Spain.[24][25] "As they continue to be a subject of fierce debate," notes Daniel Politi, in Argentina "gender-neutral formulations have become increasingly common."[26] In Puerto Rico, "The shift toward x in reference to people has already occurred," and the use of terms like "hermanx and niñx and their equivalents have been the standard...for years. It is clear that the inclusive approach to nouns and adjectives is becoming more common, and while it may at some point become the prevailing tendency, presently there is no prescriptive control toward either syntax."[27]

Many people became more aware of the term in the month following the Orlando nightclub shooting of June 2016; Google Trends shows that searches for this term rose greatly in this period.[16]:60 A similar use of 'x' in the term Mx. may have been an influence or model for the development of Latinx.[28]

At Princeton University the Latinx Perspective Organization was founded in 2016 to "unify Princeton's diverse Latinx community"[29] and several student-run organizations at other institutions have utilized the word in their title.[30]

The term appears in the titles of academic books in the context of LGBT studies,[31] rhetoric and composition studies,[32] and comics studies.[33]

On June 26, 2019, during the first 2020 Democratic Party presidential debate, the word was used by the presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren,[34] which USA Today called "one of the highest profile uses of the term since its conception".[35]

A 2019 poll (with a 5% margin of error) found that in recent years 2% of US residents of Latin American descent in the US have begun using Latinx, including 3% of 18-34-year-olds. "No respondents over [age] 50 selected the term," while overall "3% of women and 1% of men selected the term as their preferred ethnic identifier."[36][37][3]

A 2020 study based on interviews with 34 Latinx/a/o students from the US found that they "perceive higher education as a privileged space where they use the term Latinx. Once they return to their communities, they do not use the term."[15]

In Literature and Academia

Scharrón-del Río and Aja (2015) have traced the use of Latinx in authors Beatriz Llenín Figueroa, Jaime Géliga Quiñones, Yuderkys Espinosa Miñoso, and Adriana Gallegos Dextre.[38] The term has also been discussed in scholarly research by cultural theorist Ilan Stavans on Spanglish[39] and by Frederick Luis Aldama and Christopher Gonzalez on Latinx super heroes in mainstream comics and Latinx graphic novels such as United States of Banana[40] [41][42]. The term and concept of Latinx is also explored by Antonio Pastrana Jr, Juan Battle and Angelique Harris on LBGTQ+ issues.[31] Valdes also uses the term in research on black perspectives on Latinx[43][44]

A 2020 analysis found "that community college professional organizations have by and large not adopted the term Latinx, even by organizations with a Latinx/a/o centered mission", although some academic journals and dissertations about community colleges were using it.[45]

Reception
Sign at the Women's March on Washington. The sign reads, "women's, LGBTQIA, immigrant's, black, Latinx, Muslim, & disability rights are human rights".

Latinx has been called "a recognition of the exclusionary nature of our institutions, of the deficiencies in existent linguistic structures, and of language as an agent of social change,"[46] but the term has also been the subject of controversy. Supporters say it engenders greater acceptance among non-binary gender Latinos. Linguistic imperialism has been used both as a basis of criticism, and of support. The term has been criticized by some lexicographers and rejected from some dictionaries on grammatical grounds,[35][4] and accepted by others.[47] Some have argued that the term supports patriarchal bias, is antifeminist, based on political correctness, or criticized it because it is difficult to pronounce.

While Latinx use is growing in Spain,[48] the Royal Spanish Academy rejects the use of -x and -e as gender-neutral alternatives to the collective masculine -o ending.[35][4] Regarding this decision, Darío Villanueva, RAE’s director said, “The problem is we’re confusing grammar with machismo.”[49] Some refuse to use the term, as Latinx is difficult to pronounce in the Spanish language.[2]

By 2019, linguist John McWhorter argued that usage of Latinx had not caught on, contrasting it with other neologisms such as African American (in the 1980s) or the singular they.[3] He argued that this was because "Latinx may solve a problem [i.e. that of implied gender], but it’s not a problem that people who are not academics or activists seem to find as urgent as they do."[3]

Criticism

While the term appears in Spanish in Puerto Rico and other regions of Latin America,[50][51] the term Latinx has been criticized for being used largely in the United States while not as common in other Spanish-speaking countries.[24] A 2016 HuffPost article stated, "Many opponents of the term have suggested that using an un-gendered noun like Latinx is disrespectful to the Spanish language and some have even called the term 'a blatant form of linguistic imperialism.'"[2][24] In a 2017 article for the Los Angeles Times, Daniel Hernandez wrote "The term is used mostly by an educated minority, largely in the U.S."[52]

Another argument against Latinx is that "it erases feminist movements in the 1970s" that fought for use of the word Latina to represent women.[35]

Hector Luis Alamo described the term as a "bulldozing of Spanish".[16] In a 2015 article for Latino Rebels, Alamo wrote: "If we dump Latino for Latinx because it offends some people, then we should go on dumping words forever since there will always be some people who find some words offensive.[53]

Nicole Trujillo-Pagán has argued that patriarchal bias is reproduced in ostensibly "gender neutral" language[54][55][56] and asserted, "Less clear in the debate (as it has developed since then) is how the replacement silences and erases long-standing struggles to recognize the significance of gender difference and sexual violence."[57]

Support

The term Latinx allows those who do not identify within the gender binary to be seen and accepted by getting rid of the gendered ending of Latina/o, said Yara Simón in Remezcla.[58] In Spanish and in English, the suffix "x has grown into the linguistic vacuum created by a culture that values inclusivity over the ideologies embedded in a and o."[59] Some commentators, such as Ed Morales, a lecturer at Columbia University and author of the 2018 book Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture, associate the term with the ideas of Gloria Anzaldúa, a Chicana feminist. Morales writes that "refusal to conform to male/female gender binaries" parallels "the refusal to conform to a racial binary".[16]:61 Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera argues that "The gesture toward linguistic intersectionality stems from a suffix endowed with a literal intersection — x."[60]

Defending usage of the term against critics arguing linguistic imperialism, Brooklyn College professors María R. Scharrón-del Río and Alan A. Aja argued that the Spanish language itself is a form of linguistic imperialism for Latin Americans.[38][2]

The term Latinx was added to the Merriam-Webster English dictionary[47] in 2018, as it continued to grow in popularity.[35]

Similar terms
See also: Gender neutrality in Spanish

Similar gender-neutral forms have also arisen. One such term is Latin@,[61][38] which combines the written form of the ⟨-a⟩ and ⟨-o⟩ endings and is used to mark where someone is "at" in terms of gender and has been in use since the 1990s.[62] Similar terms include Chicanx[63] and the variant spelling Xicanx.[64]

Latine (plural: Latines) is another gender-neutral term that has found less acceptance than Latinx.[61] It arose out of genderqueer speakers' use of the ending -e; similar forms include amigue ('friend') and elle (singular 'they').[65]

Latin* (pronounced "Latin") has been proposed as an inclusive term to encompass existing labels such as Latinx, Latiné, Latini, Latinu, Latino, Latina, Latina/o, Latin@, Latin, and Latin American, and as a placeholder for other emerging terms.[15]

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See also

References

Footnotes
  1. "To be Latinx or not to be Latinx? For some Hispanics that is the question". NBC News. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
  2. Ramirez, Tanisha Love; Blay, Zeba (July 5, 2016). "Why People Are Using The Term 'Latinx'". HuffPost. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  3. McWhorter, John (December 23, 2019). "Why Latinx Can't Catch On". The Atlantic. Retrieved May 27, 2020.
  4. Cataño, Adriana (November 28, 2018). "The RAE Has Made Its Decision About Latinx and Latine in Its First Style Manual". Remezcla.
  5. "Latinx". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
  6. "Latinx". Lexico UK Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
  7. "Latinx". Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
  8. "Latinx". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
  9. Stavans, Ilan. "El significado del 'latinx'". New York Times. Retrieved July 31, 2019.
  10. Trujillo-Pagán, Nicole (2018). "Crossed out by LatinX: Gender neutrality and genderblind sexism". Latino Studies. 16 (3): 396–406. doi:10.1057/s41276-018-0138-7.
  11. "'Latinx' And Gender Inclusivity: How do you pronounce this more inclusive word?". Merriam-Webster. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, Inc. September 2018. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
  12. Santos, Carlos E. (2017). ""The History, Struggles, and Potential of the Term Latinx". Latina/o Psychology Today. 4, Issue 2: 7–14.
  13. Vargas 2018, 1.1 Group Identity.
  14. "Latinx". Oxford Dictionaries UK Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Retrieved May 4, 2018.
  15. Salinas, Cristobal (2020). "The Complexity of the "x" in Latinx : How Latinx/a/o Students Relate to, Identify With, and Understand the Term Latinx". Journal of Hispanic Higher Education. 19 (2): 149–168. doi:10.1177/1538192719900382. ISSN 1538-1927.
  16. Brammer, John Paul (May 2019). "Generation X: Digging Into the Messy History of 'Latinx' Helped Me Embrace My Complex Identity". Mother Jones. Vol. 44 no. 3. pp. 59–61.
  17. Gonzalez, Irina (June 19, 2019). "Why Did "Latinx" Get Popular—And What Does It Mean?". Oprah Magazine. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
  18. Gamio Cuervo, Arlene B. (August 2016). "Latinx: A Brief Guidebook". Princeton LGBT Center – via Academia.edu.
  19. Salinas, Cristobal; Lozano, Adele (2017). "Mapping and recontextualizing the evolution of the term Latinx: An environmental scanning in higher education". Journal of Latinos and Education. 18 (4): 302–315. doi:10.1080/15348431.2017.1390464.
  20. Herlihy-Mera, Jeffrey. "The Cross-Lingual Interse(x)tionality of 'Latinx | Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved August 21, 2019.
  21. "The Cross-Lingual Interse(x)tionality of 'Latinx".
  22. Rossini, Jon D (2018). "The Latinx, Indigenous, and the Americas Graduate Class: Geography, Pedagogy, and Power". Theatre Journal. 70, no. 4: 443–445. doi:10.1353/tj.2018.0093.
  23. Magtoto, Mica (March 9, 2016). "Latinx: A case for inclusion or segregation?". Iowa State Daily. Ames, Iowa. Retrieved August 6, 2019. The term Latinx has been sweeping across college campuses in the nation with the intent of creating inclusion while inadvertently pitting members of the Latino community into a cultural war.
  24. Guerra, Gilbert; Orbea, Gilbert (November 19, 2015). "The argument against the use of the term 'Latinx'". The Phoenix. Retrieved July 1, 2019. This is a blatant form of linguistic imperialism – the forcing of U.S. ideals upon a language in a way that does not grammatically or orally correspond with it.
  25. "¿Qué significa ser «latinx» y por qué es un término más usado en Estados Unidos que en Latinoamérica?".
  26. Politi, Daniel. "TIn Argentina, a Bid to Make Language Gender Neutral Gains Traction| Daniel Politi". The New York Times. Retrieved August 8, 2020.
  27. Herlihy-Mera, Jeffrey. "The Cross-Lingual Interse(x)tionality of 'Latinx | Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved August 8, 2020.
  28. "'Latinx' And Gender Inclusivity How do you pronounce this more inclusive word?". Merriam Webster. 2017. Archived from the original on August 3, 2017. Retrieved August 2, 2019. A similar use of "x" is in Mx., a gender-neutral title of courtesy that is used in place of gendered titles, such as Mr. and Ms. It has been suggested that the use of "x" in Mx. influenced Latinx.
  29. "Home". Princeton University Latinx Perspectives Organization. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  30. "Student Organizations | UNC Latina/o Studies Program". lsp.unc.edu. Retrieved April 23, 2017. "Iowa State University – Student Organizations". stuorg.iastate.edu. Retrieved April 23, 2017. "Latinx Student Organizations | Multicultural Resource Center". new.oberlin.edu. Oberlin College. October 24, 2016. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  31. Pastrana, Jr., Antonio (Jay); Battle, Juan; Harris, Angelique (December 22, 2016). An Examination of Latinx LGBT Populations Across the United States: Intersections of Race and Sexuality. Palgrave Pivot. Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-56074-2. ISBN 9781137560742. OCLC 974040623.
  32. Ruiz, Iris D.; Sánchez, Raúl, eds. (October 15, 2016). Decolonizing Rhetoric and Composition Studies: New Latinx Keywords for Theory and Pedagogy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-52724-0. ISBN 9781137527233. OCLC 934502504.
  33. Aldama, Frederick Luis (2016). Latinx Comic Book Storytelling: An Odyssey by Interview. San Diego, CA: ¡Hyperbole Books!, a San Diego State University Press imprint. ISBN 978-1938537929. OCLC 973339575.
  34. Weinberg, Abigail (June 26, 2019). "The First Question of the Democratic Debate was a Challenge to Elizabeth Warren. She Didn't Back Down". Mother Jones. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
  35. Rodriguez, Adrianna (June 29, 2019). "'Latinx' explained: A history of the controversial word and how to pronounce it". USA Today. Retrieved July 1, 2019.
  36. https://medium.com/@ThinkNowTweets/progressive-latino-pollster-trust-me-latinos-do-not-identify-with-latinx-63229adebcea
  37. "What's the Deal With 'Latinx'?". Fortune.
  38. Scharrón-del Río, María R.; Aja, Alan A. (December 5, 2015). "The Case for 'Latinx': Why Intersectionality Is Not a Choice". Latino Rebels.
  39. "Ilan Stavans". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved August 4, 2020.
  40. Aldama, Frederick Luis, 1969-. Latinx superheroes in mainstream comics. Jennings, John, 1970-, Hernandez, Javier, 1966-. Tucson, Arizona. ISBN 978-0-8165-3708-2. OCLC 983824443.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  41. Aldama, Frederick; González, Christopher (December 7, 2018). Latinx Studies: The Key Concepts. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-61435-1.
  42. Aldama, Frederick Luis (2020). POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, LOVERS : On the Writings of Giannina Braschi. Pittsburgh: UNIV OF PITTSBURGH Press. ISBN 0-8229-4618-1. OCLC 1143649021.CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  43. Valdés, Vanessa K. (March 15, 2017). Diasporic Blackness: The Life and Times of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. ISBN 9781438465159. OCLC 961828672.
  44. Johnson, Jessica Marie (December 12, 2015). "Thinking About the 'X'". Black Perspectives. AAIHS. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  45. Salinas, Cristobal; Doran, Erin E.; Swingle, Ethan C. (2020). "Community Colleges' Use of the Term "Latinx"". New Directions for Community Colleges. 2020 (190): 9–20. doi:10.1002/cc.20383. ISSN 0194-3081.
  46. Herlihy-Mera, Jeffrey (May 1, 2018). ""The Cross-Lingual Interse(x)tionality of 'Latinx'". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  47. "Latinx". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Retrieved April 3, 2019.
  48. "¿Qué significa ser «latinx» y por qué es un término más usado en Estados Unidos que en Latinoamérica?".
  49. "The RAE Has Made Its Decision About Latinx and Latine in Its First Style Manual".
  50. Politi, Daniel. "TIn Argentina, a Bid to Make Language Gender Neutral Gains Traction| Daniel Politi". The New York Times. Retrieved August 8, 2020.
  51. Herlihy-Mera, Jeffrey. "The Cross-Lingual Interse(x)tionality of 'Latinx | Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved August 8, 2020.
  52. Hernandez, Daniel (December 17, 2017). "The case against 'Latinx'". Los Angeles Times.
  53. Luis Alamo, Hector (December 12, 2015). "The X-ing of Language: The Case Against 'Latinx'". Latino Rebels.
  54. Gastil, John (December 1990). "Generic pronouns and sexist language: The oxymoronic character of masculine generics". Sex Roles. 23 (11–12): 629–643. doi:10.1007/BF00289252.
  55. Sniezek, Janet A.; Jazwinski, Christine H. (October 1986). "Gender bias in English: In search of fair language". Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 16 (7): 642–662. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1986.tb01165.x.
  56. Prewitt-Freilino, Jennifer L.; Caswell, T. Andrew; Laakso, Emmi K. (February 2012). "The gendering of language: A comparison of gender equality in countries with gendered, natural gender, and genderless languages". Sex Roles. 66 (3–4): 268–281. doi:10.1007/s11199-011-0083-5.
  57. Trujillo-Pagán, Nicole (February 27, 2018). "No Shock or Awe About 'Acting' Latinx". Latino Rebels. Retrieved July 29, 2018.
  58. Simón, Yara (September 14, 2018). "Hispanic vs. Latino vs. Latinx: A Brief History of How These Words Originated". Remezcla. Retrieved April 3, 2019.
  59. "The Cross-Lingual Interse(x)tionality of 'Latinx".
  60. "The Cross-Lingual Interse(x)tionality of 'Latinx".
  61. Vidal-Ortiz, Salvador; Martínez, Juliana (2018). "Latinx thoughts: Latinidad with an X" (PDF). Latino Studies. 16 (3): 384–395. doi:10.1057/s41276-018-0137-8. Terms like Latin@, Latine, and LatinU have been deployed—with less traction—to mobilize Latina/o communities
  62. Rodríguez, Juana María. Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces. New York: NYU Press, 2003.
  63. Cashman, Holly (2018). Queer, Latinx, and Bilingual: Narrative Resources in the Negotiation of Identities. Routledge. Introduction; Note 1. ISBN 978-0-415-73909-2. Similarly, Latinx, Chicanx [...] along with many other terms, are all used to describe the ethnolinguistic community.
  64. Noriega, Christine (February 16, 2017). "'We Are Still Here' is a Gorgeous Book Capturing the Queer-Inclusive Evolution of East LA's Chicanx Identity". Remezcla. [T]he Xicanx identity [is] a relatively new term some Mexican-Americans have claimed that stems from the grassroots and working-class roots of the 1960s Chicano movement, but also incorporates indigenous consciousness, feminism, and queer theory in its politics.
  65. Papadopoulos, Benjamin (2019). Morphological Gender Innovations in Spanish of Genderqueer Speakers (Thesis). University of California, Berkeley. p. 3.

Works cited

Further reading
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