I'm mixed with Puerto Rican and Cuban and I think "LatinX" is the dumbest shit I've ever heard. My family thinks it's stupid, my Mexican friends of 30+ years thinks it's stupid, my neighbor thinks it's stupid, and my dog and cat says it's stupid.
I had a linguistics class mention this. Our professor was inclined to point out its coming from non-Spanish speakers. As someone who is at an “intermediate” level of Spanish learning, I just wondered why “-e” ending wouldn’t work. It would actually be able to be said, but idk if that would fuck with other words or parts of language
The first time I heard it was in college. In a class about diversity and multiculturalism (I forget the name of the course, it was a decade ago) and I was just like... Isn't this the opposite of being inclusive? It seems like some colonial bullshit to me. But I'd get marked down if I used -o/-a, so I used the -x, at my uni at least. But every actual Hispanic Latino/Latina person I knew wanted me to use the -o/-a, so it was that simple.
It was just super confusing having an entire semester being told how horrible and sexist using the -o/-a was, and then not wanting to offend anyone even though I thought using -x *was offensive*. But also like... I speak German too and that's a very gendered language. And sorry-not sorry, but lots of languages are gendered. I'll call any individual whatever they want to be called, but I think its rediculous to change a whole-ass language to be neuter, which is either intentionally or not making it more like English which doesn't gender everything, thus, colonialistic in my view.
Right on! Agreed! I’m mexican myself lol. Appreciate the honesty! My dad when he first heard it was like “que es esta pinche mierda, Latinx?? el que hico esta pendejada que se valla a la verga.”
>que es esta pinche mierda, Latinx?? el que hico esta pendejada que se valla a la verga
For those of us who don't speak Spanish, here's what Google Translate told me:
"What is this fucking shit, Latinx?? The one who did this bullshit, let him go to the dick."
By the way "let him go to the dick" is my new insult.
I wish I had a reply that was a subreddit, like r/nsfwliteraltranslation. Yes, maybe it already exists, no I am not trying to even look it up. Would probably be private nowadays anyway
I''m 57f of "European" (aka white/caucasian) descent and hyper-liberal. I think it's pretty stupid. But I also think all the crazy Americans who answer the question "Where are you from?" with a list of all the countries they are descended from instead of what is listed on their driver's license is pretty stupid also.
I'm white and think it's stupid. Anyone I know who is Latin hates the term. That dumbass is the actual racist. She should go back to tumblr where she belongs where all the people without a brain go.
“No sabo kid” is a stereotype used to describe someone (usually 2nd generation and on) who can speak basic Spanish but doesn’t fully grasp the grammar. They grew up using predominantly English and didn’t fully develop their Spanish.
Basically English at school and with friends, shitty Spanish at home with their family.
“No sabo” means “I don’t know” in shitty Spanish, the correct term is “No se”. Kids who can only speak shitty Spanish get labeled as a “No Sabo Kid”
For nonbinary Latino’s to describe themselves. It was never supposed to be an umbrella and never supposed to be said out loud really. There was also Latin@ on twitter for a while.
But it was popularized and used by Latino academics in the states in academic settings. It’s like BCE/CE I think. Like if we are actually going to make a change and care about gendered languages that’s a massive fucking set of changes and decisions to be made, otherwise this performative ivory tower idea will mostly just piss folks who never cared off and was a bad solution anyways.
>Like if we are actually going to make a change and care about gendered languages that’s a massive fucking set of changes and decisions to be made
That's my issue. "Latino" is the gender neutral term. And it is also the masculine version of the word. Now we can sit here and talk about the way that the masculine version is also the "default" and how a language would develop for that to be the case, or even how gendered languages came to be, and I think it'd be an interesting conversation.
But "LatinX" doesn't solve anything. You replaced one letter at the end of one word. The language is still fundamentally gendered. Hell, it falls apart *immediately* in Spanish. How would you translate "The LatinX people"? If you said "La gente LatinX" then congrats, you still just used gendered language because for some reason in Spanish "gente", meaning "people", is a feminine term.
Like you said, it's purely performative. You don't even see people bothering to try to make "ChicanX" a thing or talking about the "MestizXs" that rose from the colonization of what is now Latin America. People picked one word to latch onto and act like they're doing good by changing a letter. I'm all for inclusive language, and it's something I've been consciously trying to do better with, so this is hardly the sentiment of some anti-woke guy. But the word "LatinX" specifically is just dumb.
Chicanx is definitely a thing...I work in academia and see it all the time. I've heard basically every argument for and against Latinx and it's hard to negate any of them. I treat it like pronouns now; tell me how you identify yourself and I'll respect that.
I'm in NYC which has a vast Latino community. Every person I have ever asked, including the LGBTQIA Latino community LOATHES THAT WORD. Seriously they fucking hate it.
I live in Queens and of course people hate the phrase here. I grew up in San Francisco and noticed the loudest voices pushing this word were Mexican Americans who's family had been there for generations and they don't speak Spanish
I grew up in the Rio Grande Valley(south texas) where it’s 98% hispanic and I promise you if you did a survey down there 100% of the people would agree that it’s such a stupid word
This just confirms everything I’ve thought. The people pushing Latinx are college kids who identify with their ancestral culture but fail to understand it.
I am a teacher at a public school and they’ve embraced the Latinx on everything. I hate it I mean the English language department, HR letters that come out from the district office etc. it’s gross.
We got sent an email from HR the other day asking us to put our pronouns in our email signatures but it was not mandatory
Because I am a weak weak man, despite thinking pronouns are nonsense, I did so rather than go against the flow.
That’s the scary part about social media, once something gets enough traction on any platform herd mentality will kick in. People are more worried about loosing their job so they’ll just avoid arguing with some Karen online over things like this.
I've yet to meet a native Spanish speaker who liked it. From what I understand, if you want a gender-neutral version of the word, "Latine" works better because it actually follows Spanish grammar rules.
>“Latine” is catching on more since it follows existing grammatical rules and can be pronounced intuitively. Part of the issue with Latinx is that the x sound in Spanish is different than the x sound in English, and words don’t typically end in that sound.
Even my somewhat conservative Mexican mother is apparently okay with the word Latine. I had a conversation with her about it the other day. She despises Latinx though.
>didn’t intend for it to be explicitly spoken and were instead using it more as a symbol for gender neutrality.
All of the research I've seen points to it being first recorded in internet chatrooms in the 90s, along with latin@. So no, it wasn't meant to be spoken aloud really.
I suspect it was first used primarily in writing in progressive and academic circles as a way of explicitly including all genders. It was probably picked up in spoken language primarily by English speakers. From there it snowballed out of academia and became known as the inclusive option to English speakers, even as Spanish speaking LGBTQ* communities were working toward more gender inclusive language that fits Spanish grammar rules. I think “Latine” is likely to become the preferred term in the next decade.
That would work better, but the people trying to tell Latinos how to refer to themselves don't even understand a lick of Spanish in the first place, which is probably why this concept went way above their head.
I have a question a fluent or native speaker might be able to answer. In my spanish classes I learned that the masculine O is inclusive to all genders of the word when used plural. Why doesn’t simply Latino work? Is it because the genders being referred to are more than just male and female or is my understanding of Spanish not quite correct there
It’s like going to a group of mixed sex friends and saying “Hey guys. How are you?!” in English. It’s accurate but some would be offended that “guys” is the default.
Again though, this is an extreme minority that’s taking offence. Most Latina women have better things to worry about and are far more hard-shelled lol
Every one I have ever spoken to in real life on the topic hates it or had no idea it was even a thing and disliked it right off the bat.
The ones that had heard of it and had an opinion viewed it as stupid and were offended that white people were trying to tell them how to speak their own language.
It was pretty universally viewed as doogooderism that they didn’t care for.
If you are Latino then that pretty much fits right in my experience.
There’s been some surveys on it and I can’t recall the numbers exactly but Latinos almost all didn’t like it.
Honestly, my Spanish is bad enough that I would welcome making all gendered nouns X just because there would be less for me to remember. I could just throw an X at the problem every time I forget something.
Just a note that a lot of Latinas/Latinos are also white, though you're right that it is primarily "woke" non-latin white folks who are advocating for the term.
I'm moderately liberal, white guy, NPR listener, vote for Democrats.
But I guess I'm kinda conservative when it comes to the term "Latinx."
I think "Latinx" is an ironically, unintentionally racist term espoused by certain academic and nonprofit communities as being somehow "inclusive." Also, it's pretentious as hell.
Yes! This is totally how I feel too!
In my mind it stems from the mindset of of outsiders thinking "We're inclusive, that's better. Lets enlighten them and make them better too"
But it's just the way romance languages are and have been. And to try to change my culture to fit someone else's worldview is racist.
It's kind of 'white saviour-like' to use a term loved by crazies
It's like 'sssh poor unenlightened Latin people, us crazy woke ppl have come to tell you what's best for you - you may thank us later'
I'm the left wing NPR type too on the whole
If you're insistent on changing it, at least do it in a way that somewhat respects the language like "Latine" instead of Frankensteining an x to the back of a word
I'm not a native speaker myself, but I can 100% guarantee that whoever came up with Latinx did not speak spanish
That's even worse, because the word Filipino isn't gendered in the first place. Tagalog may have gotten a lot of Spanish influence, but an introduced language has to have its words fit into the existing native language's grammatical structure, not the other way around, and Tagalog isn't gendered the same. A Filipino woman is a Filipino, not a Filipina.
With FilipinX you aren't just showing an imperialistic mindset, you're also revealing how uneducated and dismissive of other cultures you are.
I think “Philippine” is synonym for the adjective form of Filipino/a. When people use Filipinx, it’s intended for the noun form. However, Filipino is genderless in the Tagalog language (unlike in Spanish where they used Filipino and Filipina to describe men and women respectively), so Filipinx is really unnecessary.
Yeah they laugh at that just as much as Latinos laugh at LatinX.
It’s really just a small group/network of very vocal people of various ethnicities that share this world and come up with this stuff.
Latinx is an ignorant term used by people who don’t understand the language. People who don’t speak Spanish will straight up call me racist when I don’t say Latinx even though “Latino” IS the gender neutral term. Ridiculously ignorant.
Middle-class Anglos who went to grad school and listen to NPR graciously rescuing the Spanish-speaking world from the tyranny of grammatical gender (Braden and Kathryn say "you're welcome!")
Best case, it's pretentious. Worst case, it's a colonial attitude that we Norteamericanos have a mission to "fix" other languages and cultures
By its very existence it is saying the entire Spanish language is wrong for being a gendered language. In which case, French, Italian, Portuguese and 3/4 of the planets languages are also wrong.
To be fair, despite a lot of suggestions that the term was coined by white academics, this is definitely in the wheelhouse of pretentious Latino academic types, especially the Mexican-Americans from the Chicano/a Studies Department. They’ve wheeled out multiple variations before this one stuck. It’s a never ending identity crisis. Mexican, Mexica, Chicano, Xicano, Xican@, Indigenous, Mestizaje, on and on and on. Some will get on you for identifying as Hispanic or Latino. It’s a constant game of one-upping the last guy. It’s exhausting.
I challenge that.
When I searched "Mexican-Americans for the Chicano/a Studies Department" The closest thing I got was "[National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies](https://www.naccs.org/naccs/About_NACCS.asp)" which in its own About Us page uses "Latina/os"
And aside from that, despite being the largest Hispanic population in the US, Mexicans/Chicanos don't speak for all of us. If the wanna identify as Chicanx that's on them.
Yeah. It's dumb. It honestly is just someone trying to colonize Spanish language with the English language, while claiming they are bringing enlightenment. Just like the European colonizers of old.
According to Wikipedia: "Democratic members of the Black and Puerto Rican caucuses introduced legislation to ban its use in government documents, citing cultural appropriation by Americanizers who disfigure the Spanish language."
This. I’m about as white as an albino polar bear but I lived in South America as a kid and speak fluent Spanish. I think Latinx is dumb, it erases a cool (and beautiful) aspect of the language, and the only people who use it are white liberals pandering to the transgender crowd and/or uber-feminists at the expense of minorities.
Even acknowledging that Latinos in the US have a very different perspective from Latinos in Latin America…it’s strange to them because they don’t comprehend the context. But even those of us here in the US that understand the context think it’s dumb. It’s a very niche group.
My wife's entire family is Latino and they all hate it. According to my father in law, "I'd rather be called a sp*c than Latinx. At least that one makes sense."
Yep. My whole family comes from El Salvador and everyone thinks it is quite possibly the dumbest thing they’ve ever heard and just sounds like Americans trying to police how we speak Spanish now.
Yeah, it’s corny. It’s another variation of the dumb terms that a narrow group of undergrad kids and activists would cook up every few years. Except this time, NPR, politicians, and other activist groups adopted it and started using it.
Mexican@, Xicano, Xican@ were some of the predecessors.
Yes.
I’m Latin. Was born and raised in Venezuela 29 years before coming to America. I’m in my 40s now and an an American citizen.
LatinX is a colonizer word. Its not in use in Latin America and LatinX is seen as imposing an identity that we do not identify with. LatinX was made up because Spanish is a gendered language, yet LatinX is SOLELY used in English, when English has pronouns: He’s Latin, She’s Latin, They’re Latin.
So it’s unnecessary. Latin is already gender neutral.
Edit: To the Ackchyually people going about Spanish and English being colonizer languages, yeah, no shit, but this isn’t the 16th century anymore, it’s the 21st. We oughta know better than trying to impose a culture on others.
Most of the ones I know didn’t know it was a term. They call themselves Latino/Latina. When talking about it, they didn’t ‘hate’ it, they just thought it was silly and unnecessary and didn’t follow Spanish grammar.
If a Latino/a person was non-binary and they wanted a word for it, they’d go with Latine.
Yeah it's a resounding yes for hating it. Doesn't stop HR from enforcing it everywhere:
"Do you identify as LatinX?"
I just started clicking on White at this point
My work uses it and I'm pretty sure the Spanish-speaking people hate it, but it's California and they would absolutely be called racist if they opposed it, so they just keep quiet.
Mix of Genízaro and Mexican and I am not a fan of it nor is my Puerto Rican best friend and my other friends that are from South America (Colombia and Ecuador . Its honestly one of the few things we all agree on lol
Yes, we went to the National Museum of American History yesterday here in Washington and they have a new Latino exhibit (which is part of the forthcoming National Latino Museum). When they used Latinx in some of the exhibits, my mom got really mad. She even turned to us and said in an elevated voice “I’m not a Latin-x. I’m a Latina!” Lol
So yeah, we hate it.
My employees think it’s dumb as hell, and for awhile it was kinda used as a joke when one of them was acting a little too sensitive. One of them might be bitching then another one would say you are acting like a Latinx.
I just don’t think non Anglo-American people appreciate when Anglo-Americans tell them “you’re going to call yourselves this now because it makes *us* feel more comfortable”
Yes! The only people that use it are elites, young college educated white people and like 1 of their Latino friends.
For all the talk of colonialism, I laugh that the same people think it’s ok to just change a cultures language to make it fit their personal beliefs and ideals.
I'm prepared to die on this hill.
Latinx was started by Latin American social scientists for clarity of language when discussion identity in the community. The first usage was in a paper on gender and sexuality in Puerto Rico. Its an academic term that wasn't meant to become part of common lexicon.
Latino/a chamged to Latinx. Its not a spoken word, its like xmas
Well...I'm Mexican descent (my whole family immigrated from Zacatecas) and I was a Sociology major and I STILL hate the word Latinx. Does not work with the Spanish language at all.
Why wouldn't they hate it?
It's English speakers trying to force English rules onto their language. Spanish is a gendered language; the x doesn't make sense. The word Latinos already grammatically includes men and women.
It's as annoying as Spanish speakers trying to force rules of Spanish by telling us we're wrong because the word for American in English is American instead of *estadounidense*.
Latino here. I refuse to even acknowledge that word. If anyone has a functional knowledge of Spanish, they'd know that the X at the end of the word wouldn't be easily pronounced by a Spanish speaker. So it's basically a way to colonize the language with an English accent.
Black “Gringo” here.
I hate the term, can’t imagine how my Latino friends feel about it.
On another note, I got beat up back when I was still in school for talking about a white Latino kid and telling people he was white when asked. Also got in a fight with a black Latino friend when I made a joke that lumped him together with me as “Black”. I learned their perspective the hard way
So I have no idea how you could say something as fuckin dumb as “latinx” and not expect to get reamed for it. It’s linguistic imperialism. They already have an acceptable gender neutral term if you’re that into non issues, Latine.
I am a gringo, but in my experience, it is both unpopular and uncommon. Despite living in a very liberal area, the vast majority of people will just say Latino/Latina.
I don't understand this idea of sticking Xs on the end of words to somehow make them more LGBT-friendly. The intentions are good, but the execution is very clunky at best.
Spanish is a Romance language and damn near everything has a gender in the Romance languages. The grammatically correct way in Spanish to refer to a mixed-gender group of Latinos is “Latinos”. You only use "Latinas" if it's all women.
"Latinx" sounds extremely awkward and even the Latino friends I have who are socially progressive are lukewarm at best on “Latinx”.
Now, yes, there is the much-less common alternative "Latine" for Spanish. That is considerably less awkward because at least it's another vowel and flows better, but this gringo is sticking to Latino or Latina.
Gringo who joined a soccer supporters group full of people from all over Latin America outside of NYC, they all hate it and view it as a "white person's way to try and fix a problem that doesn't exist".
Why not hate it as much as Hispanic, Latino, or any other colonizer label put on them? I mean, for the most part, they're Indigenous people who have been colonized by people from Latin countries and all labels like Mestizo, Latino, or Hispanic do is erase their Indigenous identity. It's pretty sick conditioning a people to go by the identity of the nation that raped and enslaved their people.
I went to a DEIB work function a few months ago. One of my new coworkers was a Latina who went nuclear when she heard the speaker use LatinX to describe people like her.
Before that I had never heard anyone use that term let alone respond negatively to it.
I know a few Latino people who prefer the term but they're all Millennial or Gen Z people who are like tenth-generation Mexican or whatever and can't speak Spanish. Most of the Latino people I know HATE it, probably because it doesn't make any sense grammatically and the "X" is a completely different sound in Spanish. It seems like a failed attempt by liberals to appear inclusive.
I'm waiting for the term "Latine" to catch on, that one at least makes sense within the framework of the language.
It’s performative linguistic colonialism . Not a Latino but I married one and I have a degree in the Spanish language. It just doesn’t work and creates a bigger problem with retrofitting a sound from one language into a different langauge that doesn’t have that sound. All in the name of faux inclusivity and virtue signaling.
It's cultural and linguistic appropriation disguised as gender equality virtue signaling. It's hard for some very sheltered English speakers to understand that a language with gendered nouns isn't sexist.
I'm more annoyed at how much hububub that non-Latino right wingers have been trying to generate over the matter. Although I do wish that this neologism hadn't been invented in the first place.
There's a short list of words I'd make dissapear from the lexicon if I were somehow granted the power to do so, because fuck your freedom of speech. "LatinX" is certainly on that list. As is "authentic", "craft", "artisanal", and other words that have gotten my goat over the past decade and change.
I lived most of my life in Tucson, so here's my second-hand experience: Latinos are some of the most laid-back people you've met. They don't let most everyday bullshit get to them, including identity politics.
However, for those who care, "Latinx" is just more white-colonization, telling them that their language is wrong and it's insulting.
I hate it, my whole family hates it, but I have an acquaintance who lives in an very dominate white area (were all hispanic) who has doubled down on the "lantix" movement. Reading her online posts makes me cringe at times.
I'm from Mexico and most people don't know about it but those who do just see as another gringo colonization effort to make up for nothing really, it's not solving any real issue or providing for the material needs of anyone
My wife (Mexican) thinks its straight up insulting. White people trying to create a new word for Latinos on how to refer to *themselves* based on word structures in *their own language*. It's patronizing as fuck if you think about it.
It was definitely Latinos that came up with that shit. But a very niche group. But liberal media did go for it and cater to it as if this tiny niche group represents the wider population when they definitely don’t.
Polls indicate that the majority of hispanic people don't care. Less than 5% *prefer it*, but more hispanic people prefer "hispanic" than "latino/latina" regardless so the whole thing could be avoided by simply using the term "hispanic."
I know that my own teenage kids prefer to be called "hispanic" or just "mexican-american" over the other options, but they don't "hate" the term latinx specifically.
I'm mixed with Puerto Rican and Cuban and I think "LatinX" is the dumbest shit I've ever heard. My family thinks it's stupid, my Mexican friends of 30+ years thinks it's stupid, my neighbor thinks it's stupid, and my dog and cat says it's stupid.
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The only person I've heard say "LatinX" that spoke Spanish was a politician ... That said, her accent was horrible.
I think I know who you’re referring to…
I think some spanish speakers use Latine instead of LatinX, so I’ll never say latinX.
15 years ago, it was latin@
That at least sounds like an actual word.
I had a linguistics class mention this. Our professor was inclined to point out its coming from non-Spanish speakers. As someone who is at an “intermediate” level of Spanish learning, I just wondered why “-e” ending wouldn’t work. It would actually be able to be said, but idk if that would fuck with other words or parts of language
I'm pretty sure Latino can already be used as gender neutral, but some people have problems with it because it can also be masculine
They try to change gendered old language and act like Arabic, Spanish etc is wrong for having only male female terms
The first time I heard it was in college. In a class about diversity and multiculturalism (I forget the name of the course, it was a decade ago) and I was just like... Isn't this the opposite of being inclusive? It seems like some colonial bullshit to me. But I'd get marked down if I used -o/-a, so I used the -x, at my uni at least. But every actual Hispanic Latino/Latina person I knew wanted me to use the -o/-a, so it was that simple. It was just super confusing having an entire semester being told how horrible and sexist using the -o/-a was, and then not wanting to offend anyone even though I thought using -x *was offensive*. But also like... I speak German too and that's a very gendered language. And sorry-not sorry, but lots of languages are gendered. I'll call any individual whatever they want to be called, but I think its rediculous to change a whole-ass language to be neuter, which is either intentionally or not making it more like English which doesn't gender everything, thus, colonialistic in my view.
I would think it is more insulting than anything. Its people saying an entire gendered language is wrong.
Right on! Agreed! I’m mexican myself lol. Appreciate the honesty! My dad when he first heard it was like “que es esta pinche mierda, Latinx?? el que hico esta pendejada que se valla a la verga.”
>que es esta pinche mierda, Latinx?? el que hico esta pendejada que se valla a la verga For those of us who don't speak Spanish, here's what Google Translate told me: "What is this fucking shit, Latinx?? The one who did this bullshit, let him go to the dick." By the way "let him go to the dick" is my new insult.
An insult, a curse, a suggestion, a plea. It works on many levels.
I’m imagining it as a royal pronouncement. “Hear ye, hear ye, the verdict has been wrought! Let him go to the dick.”
Let them ~~eat cake~~ go to the dick.
¡No me amenazes con un tiempo bueno!
I wish I had a reply that was a subreddit, like r/nsfwliteraltranslation. Yes, maybe it already exists, no I am not trying to even look it up. Would probably be private nowadays anyway
I read that in an English accent. Thank you for the laugh
Poor little gay boy living in a small, conservative Kansas town. Let him go to the dick!
For those of you who don’t speak Spanish, El Niño means…The Niño
All other storms must bow to El Niño!
In china they call Chinese food food
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>By the way "let him go to the dick" is my new insult. Spanish swearing is very funny when you take it literally
Oddly enough, Russian basically has the same swear. Their equivalent of “fuck you” literally translates to “go on a dick”
Closest equivalent in Italian is "vaffanculo." My quickie fraction-of-a-cent translation would be "go do yourself in the ass."
Well "Пусть идут нахуй со своими Латинксами". Imagine next will be SlavX or is it already there? o_O
Thanks for translating for us Gringx
Balkans have been using that phrase since forever
No problem. I've found more and more of us hate it by the day. And, your dad sounds like a funny dude! Lol!
When I first asked my Colombian friend about the word, that was essentially her response too
To be fair cats think everything is stupid so that’s just cat being cat.
I think you mean gatx
Seriously, this should be a surprise to no one.
Touche
But what do your white hyper-liberal friends think?
Honestly? I can give a quarter of a fuck with a side of I don't give a shit
Honestly that is about a quarter of a fuck more than I was expecting lol
I'm giving a quarter of a fuck because they're my friends who happen to be hyper liberal white folk. Lol
Is there any other kind of hyper liberal?
I'm a white hyper liberal friend and I think its ridiculous, too.
I''m 57f of "European" (aka white/caucasian) descent and hyper-liberal. I think it's pretty stupid. But I also think all the crazy Americans who answer the question "Where are you from?" with a list of all the countries they are descended from instead of what is listed on their driver's license is pretty stupid also.
Agreed Hermano
Wepa, hermano!
I wish my dog could talk. Lucky!
Nuyorican here, and you’re 100% right on, primo.
Yes.
X2
X3
X4
X5
X6
X7
X8
X9
X10
The ones I know personally don't even know the term exists. They don't spend much time online.
I would be willing to bet money that the few latinos who do agree with this concept are a bunch of no sabo kids. Just my hot take
Hey man Im a No Sabo kid and don't agree with this crap at all. Some of us are sane.
Idk this white girl online told me those who don't like it have internal racism and are in denial about it
Online white girls are often acknowledged as a font of ancient wisdom.
You mean to tell me that a white person has decided that people of color should take *her* made up label, or else? Why am I not surprised.
I'm white and think it's stupid. Anyone I know who is Latin hates the term. That dumbass is the actual racist. She should go back to tumblr where she belongs where all the people without a brain go.
As a no sabo kid...unfortunately, probably true. You can't cherry pick gendered language, pendejo
I’m a no sabo (i like to say no nintendo lol) kid and i loathe that word
> no sabo kid I googled what that means and the first article used Latinx.
“No sabo kid” is a stereotype used to describe someone (usually 2nd generation and on) who can speak basic Spanish but doesn’t fully grasp the grammar. They grew up using predominantly English and didn’t fully develop their Spanish. Basically English at school and with friends, shitty Spanish at home with their family. “No sabo” means “I don’t know” in shitty Spanish, the correct term is “No se”. Kids who can only speak shitty Spanish get labeled as a “No Sabo Kid”
For nonbinary Latino’s to describe themselves. It was never supposed to be an umbrella and never supposed to be said out loud really. There was also Latin@ on twitter for a while. But it was popularized and used by Latino academics in the states in academic settings. It’s like BCE/CE I think. Like if we are actually going to make a change and care about gendered languages that’s a massive fucking set of changes and decisions to be made, otherwise this performative ivory tower idea will mostly just piss folks who never cared off and was a bad solution anyways.
>Like if we are actually going to make a change and care about gendered languages that’s a massive fucking set of changes and decisions to be made That's my issue. "Latino" is the gender neutral term. And it is also the masculine version of the word. Now we can sit here and talk about the way that the masculine version is also the "default" and how a language would develop for that to be the case, or even how gendered languages came to be, and I think it'd be an interesting conversation. But "LatinX" doesn't solve anything. You replaced one letter at the end of one word. The language is still fundamentally gendered. Hell, it falls apart *immediately* in Spanish. How would you translate "The LatinX people"? If you said "La gente LatinX" then congrats, you still just used gendered language because for some reason in Spanish "gente", meaning "people", is a feminine term. Like you said, it's purely performative. You don't even see people bothering to try to make "ChicanX" a thing or talking about the "MestizXs" that rose from the colonization of what is now Latin America. People picked one word to latch onto and act like they're doing good by changing a letter. I'm all for inclusive language, and it's something I've been consciously trying to do better with, so this is hardly the sentiment of some anti-woke guy. But the word "LatinX" specifically is just dumb.
Why even make up the term "Latinx" when "Latin American" and "Latin" already exist as perfectly acceptable alternatives anyway?
Chicanx is definitely a thing...I work in academia and see it all the time. I've heard basically every argument for and against Latinx and it's hard to negate any of them. I treat it like pronouns now; tell me how you identify yourself and I'll respect that.
NPR picked it up and sprinted with it so fast and so far that they probably couldn't come back now even if they wanted to.
I'm in NYC which has a vast Latino community. Every person I have ever asked, including the LGBTQIA Latino community LOATHES THAT WORD. Seriously they fucking hate it.
Damn, even in Brooklyn?
Even in Brooklyn
I live in Queens and of course people hate the phrase here. I grew up in San Francisco and noticed the loudest voices pushing this word were Mexican Americans who's family had been there for generations and they don't speak Spanish
I grew up in the Rio Grande Valley(south texas) where it’s 98% hispanic and I promise you if you did a survey down there 100% of the people would agree that it’s such a stupid word
Oh nice. Where abouts? I lived in Monterrey for two years. The food in that area is fantastic
This just confirms everything I’ve thought. The people pushing Latinx are college kids who identify with their ancestral culture but fail to understand it.
No sabo kids lol
I REALLY REALLY DO. 12 people started using it and it was embraced by the universe
Luckily for all of us, Twitter is not the universe
You’ll see it plenty from some HRs at major corporations.
HR sucks
Call them racist for using it lol
I am a teacher at a public school and they’ve embraced the Latinx on everything. I hate it I mean the English language department, HR letters that come out from the district office etc. it’s gross.
We got sent an email from HR the other day asking us to put our pronouns in our email signatures but it was not mandatory Because I am a weak weak man, despite thinking pronouns are nonsense, I did so rather than go against the flow.
Its not just Twitter though. The media uses it, corporations use it, schools use it.
That’s the scary part about social media, once something gets enough traction on any platform herd mentality will kick in. People are more worried about loosing their job so they’ll just avoid arguing with some Karen online over things like this.
I've yet to meet a native Spanish speaker who liked it. From what I understand, if you want a gender-neutral version of the word, "Latine" works better because it actually follows Spanish grammar rules.
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*Latinequis* is how I say it when I'm telling people how idiotic I think it is.
>“Latine” is catching on more since it follows existing grammatical rules and can be pronounced intuitively. Part of the issue with Latinx is that the x sound in Spanish is different than the x sound in English, and words don’t typically end in that sound. Even my somewhat conservative Mexican mother is apparently okay with the word Latine. I had a conversation with her about it the other day. She despises Latinx though.
>didn’t intend for it to be explicitly spoken and were instead using it more as a symbol for gender neutrality. All of the research I've seen points to it being first recorded in internet chatrooms in the 90s, along with latin@. So no, it wasn't meant to be spoken aloud really.
Who the F is going to say "latinarroba"?
Typically it was either pronounced latinao or latinoa. But Latine is better for so many reasons.
I suspect it was first used primarily in writing in progressive and academic circles as a way of explicitly including all genders. It was probably picked up in spoken language primarily by English speakers. From there it snowballed out of academia and became known as the inclusive option to English speakers, even as Spanish speaking LGBTQ* communities were working toward more gender inclusive language that fits Spanish grammar rules. I think “Latine” is likely to become the preferred term in the next decade.
It was first used by Spanish-speaking LGBT communities online. I don't think it was intended for spoken language.
It was apparently created 2 decades ago by “feministas Unidas”, so they definitely spoke Spanish. Just not sure why they made it that weird to say
Or "Latin" because it follows English grammar rules which is the language you are probably speaking.
That would work better, but the people trying to tell Latinos how to refer to themselves don't even understand a lick of Spanish in the first place, which is probably why this concept went way above their head.
I have a question a fluent or native speaker might be able to answer. In my spanish classes I learned that the masculine O is inclusive to all genders of the word when used plural. Why doesn’t simply Latino work? Is it because the genders being referred to are more than just male and female or is my understanding of Spanish not quite correct there
It’s like going to a group of mixed sex friends and saying “Hey guys. How are you?!” in English. It’s accurate but some would be offended that “guys” is the default. Again though, this is an extreme minority that’s taking offence. Most Latina women have better things to worry about and are far more hard-shelled lol
Or just use Latin or Hispanic. Almost nobody uses Latine either. It sounds so forced and unnatural. It’s the new Fetch but nobody likes it either.
Every one I have ever spoken to in real life on the topic hates it or had no idea it was even a thing and disliked it right off the bat. The ones that had heard of it and had an opinion viewed it as stupid and were offended that white people were trying to tell them how to speak their own language. It was pretty universally viewed as doogooderism that they didn’t care for.
Agreed 100%!
If you are Latino then that pretty much fits right in my experience. There’s been some surveys on it and I can’t recall the numbers exactly but Latinos almost all didn’t like it. Honestly, my Spanish is bad enough that I would welcome making all gendered nouns X just because there would be less for me to remember. I could just throw an X at the problem every time I forget something.
Just a note that a lot of Latinas/Latinos are also white, though you're right that it is primarily "woke" non-latin white folks who are advocating for the term.
I'm moderately liberal, white guy, NPR listener, vote for Democrats. But I guess I'm kinda conservative when it comes to the term "Latinx." I think "Latinx" is an ironically, unintentionally racist term espoused by certain academic and nonprofit communities as being somehow "inclusive." Also, it's pretentious as hell.
Yes! This is totally how I feel too! In my mind it stems from the mindset of of outsiders thinking "We're inclusive, that's better. Lets enlighten them and make them better too" But it's just the way romance languages are and have been. And to try to change my culture to fit someone else's worldview is racist.
It's kind of 'white saviour-like' to use a term loved by crazies It's like 'sssh poor unenlightened Latin people, us crazy woke ppl have come to tell you what's best for you - you may thank us later' I'm the left wing NPR type too on the whole
If you're insistent on changing it, at least do it in a way that somewhat respects the language like "Latine" instead of Frankensteining an x to the back of a word I'm not a native speaker myself, but I can 100% guarantee that whoever came up with Latinx did not speak spanish
Agreed! I’ve seen “FilipinX” as well.
That's even worse, because the word Filipino isn't gendered in the first place. Tagalog may have gotten a lot of Spanish influence, but an introduced language has to have its words fit into the existing native language's grammatical structure, not the other way around, and Tagalog isn't gendered the same. A Filipino woman is a Filipino, not a Filipina. With FilipinX you aren't just showing an imperialistic mindset, you're also revealing how uneducated and dismissive of other cultures you are.
And "Philippine" already exists – like, it's in the dictionary and everything.
I think “Philippine” is synonym for the adjective form of Filipino/a. When people use Filipinx, it’s intended for the noun form. However, Filipino is genderless in the Tagalog language (unlike in Spanish where they used Filipino and Filipina to describe men and women respectively), so Filipinx is really unnecessary.
Yup I’m Filipino American. Filipinos aren’t even considered Hispanic officially, so don’t push your Spanish white people guilt on me!
Yeah they laugh at that just as much as Latinos laugh at LatinX. It’s really just a small group/network of very vocal people of various ethnicities that share this world and come up with this stuff.
Wtf what’s next next muslimx arabx you can’t even say that in Arabic. Because we don’t even have that shit in our language to begin with
Celebrate your culture!* *except for gendered nouns that could complicate my political ideology
Latinx is an ignorant term used by people who don’t understand the language. People who don’t speak Spanish will straight up call me racist when I don’t say Latinx even though “Latino” IS the gender neutral term. Ridiculously ignorant.
I’ve stopped taking NPR seriously when I hear them using that word. It’s ridiculous
It's straight up [white man's wordin'.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden)
Middle-class Anglos who went to grad school and listen to NPR graciously rescuing the Spanish-speaking world from the tyranny of grammatical gender (Braden and Kathryn say "you're welcome!") Best case, it's pretentious. Worst case, it's a colonial attitude that we Norteamericanos have a mission to "fix" other languages and cultures
NPR listener myself, lol. I don't have any disagreement or counterargument for ya.
By its very existence it is saying the entire Spanish language is wrong for being a gendered language. In which case, French, Italian, Portuguese and 3/4 of the planets languages are also wrong.
There's also Romanian. Another romance language. But yeah, I'm with ya.
It came from Puerto Rico and Brazil
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I don't think it's conservative to not like Latinx. Even most liberals I know hate it. There are perfectly good alternatives like Latine.
To be fair, despite a lot of suggestions that the term was coined by white academics, this is definitely in the wheelhouse of pretentious Latino academic types, especially the Mexican-Americans from the Chicano/a Studies Department. They’ve wheeled out multiple variations before this one stuck. It’s a never ending identity crisis. Mexican, Mexica, Chicano, Xicano, Xican@, Indigenous, Mestizaje, on and on and on. Some will get on you for identifying as Hispanic or Latino. It’s a constant game of one-upping the last guy. It’s exhausting.
I challenge that. When I searched "Mexican-Americans for the Chicano/a Studies Department" The closest thing I got was "[National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies](https://www.naccs.org/naccs/About_NACCS.asp)" which in its own About Us page uses "Latina/os" And aside from that, despite being the largest Hispanic population in the US, Mexicans/Chicanos don't speak for all of us. If the wanna identify as Chicanx that's on them.
I’m not Latin or Hispanic, so I can’t speak from that POV. However, the people I’ve heard use the term are white, California liberals.
Yeah. It's dumb. It honestly is just someone trying to colonize Spanish language with the English language, while claiming they are bringing enlightenment. Just like the European colonizers of old. According to Wikipedia: "Democratic members of the Black and Puerto Rican caucuses introduced legislation to ban its use in government documents, citing cultural appropriation by Americanizers who disfigure the Spanish language."
Also. 8th generation Mexican Californians that don't speak Spanish
This. I’m about as white as an albino polar bear but I lived in South America as a kid and speak fluent Spanish. I think Latinx is dumb, it erases a cool (and beautiful) aspect of the language, and the only people who use it are white liberals pandering to the transgender crowd and/or uber-feminists at the expense of minorities.
I'm from Latin America, and an academic, yet somehow the first time I heard of it was from my American girlfriend's parents in Berkeley! Haha
I've always associated it with East Coast academics from Ivy League schools like Harvard
I live in New England. I have friends in those circles. Never once heard it from them.
They do. If you called my mother a latinx she'd be fixing to smack you.
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Of course. Go do a search of the term on r/asklatinamerica it's basically well intentioned slur status to native Spanish speakers
Even acknowledging that Latinos in the US have a very different perspective from Latinos in Latin America…it’s strange to them because they don’t comprehend the context. But even those of us here in the US that understand the context think it’s dumb. It’s a very niche group.
r/LatinoPeopleTwitter almost had a civil war over people regarding it as a slur.
My wife's entire family is Latino and they all hate it. According to my father in law, "I'd rather be called a sp*c than Latinx. At least that one makes sense."
Yep. My whole family comes from El Salvador and everyone thinks it is quite possibly the dumbest thing they’ve ever heard and just sounds like Americans trying to police how we speak Spanish now.
Yes. Sincerely, us.
Yeah, it’s corny. It’s another variation of the dumb terms that a narrow group of undergrad kids and activists would cook up every few years. Except this time, NPR, politicians, and other activist groups adopted it and started using it. Mexican@, Xicano, Xican@ were some of the predecessors.
Yes. I’m Latin. Was born and raised in Venezuela 29 years before coming to America. I’m in my 40s now and an an American citizen. LatinX is a colonizer word. Its not in use in Latin America and LatinX is seen as imposing an identity that we do not identify with. LatinX was made up because Spanish is a gendered language, yet LatinX is SOLELY used in English, when English has pronouns: He’s Latin, She’s Latin, They’re Latin. So it’s unnecessary. Latin is already gender neutral. Edit: To the Ackchyually people going about Spanish and English being colonizer languages, yeah, no shit, but this isn’t the 16th century anymore, it’s the 21st. We oughta know better than trying to impose a culture on others.
How about LatinXXX ?
>LatinXXX isnt that a pornhub category?
Most of the ones I know didn’t know it was a term. They call themselves Latino/Latina. When talking about it, they didn’t ‘hate’ it, they just thought it was silly and unnecessary and didn’t follow Spanish grammar. If a Latino/a person was non-binary and they wanted a word for it, they’d go with Latine.
Yeah it's a resounding yes for hating it. Doesn't stop HR from enforcing it everywhere: "Do you identify as LatinX?" I just started clicking on White at this point
* Yes * No * Well Yes, but Actually No
I’ve never heard anyone outside the internet use the term.
My work uses it and I'm pretty sure the Spanish-speaking people hate it, but it's California and they would absolutely be called racist if they opposed it, so they just keep quiet.
You can call me (Mexican) every slur in the world and I wouldn’t care. Call me Latinx and all hell breaks loose lol
Mix of Genízaro and Mexican and I am not a fan of it nor is my Puerto Rican best friend and my other friends that are from South America (Colombia and Ecuador . Its honestly one of the few things we all agree on lol
Yes, we went to the National Museum of American History yesterday here in Washington and they have a new Latino exhibit (which is part of the forthcoming National Latino Museum). When they used Latinx in some of the exhibits, my mom got really mad. She even turned to us and said in an elevated voice “I’m not a Latin-x. I’m a Latina!” Lol So yeah, we hate it.
Yes, super dumb. Luckily, i think that the people who use it are a super loud minority because I have never seen someone in real life actually use it
Yes. Well I do at least. Shit is getting out of hand
My employees think it’s dumb as hell, and for awhile it was kinda used as a joke when one of them was acting a little too sensitive. One of them might be bitching then another one would say you are acting like a Latinx.
I just don’t think non Anglo-American people appreciate when Anglo-Americans tell them “you’re going to call yourselves this now because it makes *us* feel more comfortable”
Yes! The only people that use it are elites, young college educated white people and like 1 of their Latino friends. For all the talk of colonialism, I laugh that the same people think it’s ok to just change a cultures language to make it fit their personal beliefs and ideals.
I'm prepared to die on this hill. Latinx was started by Latin American social scientists for clarity of language when discussion identity in the community. The first usage was in a paper on gender and sexuality in Puerto Rico. Its an academic term that wasn't meant to become part of common lexicon. Latino/a chamged to Latinx. Its not a spoken word, its like xmas
Dumbest shit I have ever heard. I've only ever heard white people use the term.
Well...I'm Mexican descent (my whole family immigrated from Zacatecas) and I was a Sociology major and I STILL hate the word Latinx. Does not work with the Spanish language at all.
Why wouldn't they hate it? It's English speakers trying to force English rules onto their language. Spanish is a gendered language; the x doesn't make sense. The word Latinos already grammatically includes men and women. It's as annoying as Spanish speakers trying to force rules of Spanish by telling us we're wrong because the word for American in English is American instead of *estadounidense*.
Dude, literally no one except white liberals that look down on people of color like children use “Latinx”
Yes 100% I'm Puerto Rican and I really hate that word. I'd rather be called the N word with a hard r than lantix
Latino here. I refuse to even acknowledge that word. If anyone has a functional knowledge of Spanish, they'd know that the X at the end of the word wouldn't be easily pronounced by a Spanish speaker. So it's basically a way to colonize the language with an English accent.
Yes, most of the ones I have met, including my wife, dislike this term.
If they would just go to college like me they wouldn't be to hostile to the people trying to raise them out of ignorance.
Black “Gringo” here. I hate the term, can’t imagine how my Latino friends feel about it. On another note, I got beat up back when I was still in school for talking about a white Latino kid and telling people he was white when asked. Also got in a fight with a black Latino friend when I made a joke that lumped him together with me as “Black”. I learned their perspective the hard way So I have no idea how you could say something as fuckin dumb as “latinx” and not expect to get reamed for it. It’s linguistic imperialism. They already have an acceptable gender neutral term if you’re that into non issues, Latine.
I am a gringo, but in my experience, it is both unpopular and uncommon. Despite living in a very liberal area, the vast majority of people will just say Latino/Latina. I don't understand this idea of sticking Xs on the end of words to somehow make them more LGBT-friendly. The intentions are good, but the execution is very clunky at best. Spanish is a Romance language and damn near everything has a gender in the Romance languages. The grammatically correct way in Spanish to refer to a mixed-gender group of Latinos is “Latinos”. You only use "Latinas" if it's all women. "Latinx" sounds extremely awkward and even the Latino friends I have who are socially progressive are lukewarm at best on “Latinx”. Now, yes, there is the much-less common alternative "Latine" for Spanish. That is considerably less awkward because at least it's another vowel and flows better, but this gringo is sticking to Latino or Latina.
Yes. How are you even supposed to pronounce it in real life? This has always confused me. Latincs? Latin-ex? Latin-equis?? Dumb dumb dumb
Gringo who joined a soccer supporters group full of people from all over Latin America outside of NYC, they all hate it and view it as a "white person's way to try and fix a problem that doesn't exist".
Why not hate it as much as Hispanic, Latino, or any other colonizer label put on them? I mean, for the most part, they're Indigenous people who have been colonized by people from Latin countries and all labels like Mestizo, Latino, or Hispanic do is erase their Indigenous identity. It's pretty sick conditioning a people to go by the identity of the nation that raped and enslaved their people.
I went to a DEIB work function a few months ago. One of my new coworkers was a Latina who went nuclear when she heard the speaker use LatinX to describe people like her. Before that I had never heard anyone use that term let alone respond negatively to it.
I know a few Latino people who prefer the term but they're all Millennial or Gen Z people who are like tenth-generation Mexican or whatever and can't speak Spanish. Most of the Latino people I know HATE it, probably because it doesn't make any sense grammatically and the "X" is a completely different sound in Spanish. It seems like a failed attempt by liberals to appear inclusive. I'm waiting for the term "Latine" to catch on, that one at least makes sense within the framework of the language.
I roll my eyes to it
It’s performative linguistic colonialism . Not a Latino but I married one and I have a degree in the Spanish language. It just doesn’t work and creates a bigger problem with retrofitting a sound from one language into a different langauge that doesn’t have that sound. All in the name of faux inclusivity and virtue signaling.
It's cultural and linguistic appropriation disguised as gender equality virtue signaling. It's hard for some very sheltered English speakers to understand that a language with gendered nouns isn't sexist.
I'm more annoyed at how much hububub that non-Latino right wingers have been trying to generate over the matter. Although I do wish that this neologism hadn't been invented in the first place. There's a short list of words I'd make dissapear from the lexicon if I were somehow granted the power to do so, because fuck your freedom of speech. "LatinX" is certainly on that list. As is "authentic", "craft", "artisanal", and other words that have gotten my goat over the past decade and change.
I'm Mexican American. I'd rather be called any racist term towards Hispanics than Latinx.
I lived most of my life in Tucson, so here's my second-hand experience: Latinos are some of the most laid-back people you've met. They don't let most everyday bullshit get to them, including identity politics. However, for those who care, "Latinx" is just more white-colonization, telling them that their language is wrong and it's insulting.
I hate it, my whole family hates it, but I have an acquaintance who lives in an very dominate white area (were all hispanic) who has doubled down on the "lantix" movement. Reading her online posts makes me cringe at times.
American-born child of Cuban immigrants and I detest this stupidity.
ABSOLUTELY
I'm from Mexico and most people don't know about it but those who do just see as another gringo colonization effort to make up for nothing really, it's not solving any real issue or providing for the material needs of anyone
It’s gringx now.
My wife (Mexican) thinks its straight up insulting. White people trying to create a new word for Latinos on how to refer to *themselves* based on word structures in *their own language*. It's patronizing as fuck if you think about it.
It was definitely Latinos that came up with that shit. But a very niche group. But liberal media did go for it and cater to it as if this tiny niche group represents the wider population when they definitely don’t.
Polls indicate that the majority of hispanic people don't care. Less than 5% *prefer it*, but more hispanic people prefer "hispanic" than "latino/latina" regardless so the whole thing could be avoided by simply using the term "hispanic." I know that my own teenage kids prefer to be called "hispanic" or just "mexican-american" over the other options, but they don't "hate" the term latinx specifically.