Another Democratic Congressperson on "Latinx"

[brooklynite]

Link to tweet

[Hekate]

1. Months ago one of the LA Times' Latino columnists held forth on this. He'd never heard anyone...

…in his extended family use Latinx except some college age youngsters (which had been my intuition all along). The older adults tended to call them “wokoso” which is kind of a mocking made-up word combining “woke” with Spanish for “mucus” — in other words, “snot nose kids.”

I’m pretty sure it was Gustavo Arrellano, whose writing I enjoy.

I don’t have much input to give, being an old white lady, but because I try to keep up I’ve been trying to learn to say and write Latinx. After I finished chuckling at Arellano’s opinions, I decided I could in good conscience give that up unless specifically asked to do otherwise.

That turned out a lot better imo than DU’s fight over wypipo etc., which now just looks like trolling. I still will always try to keep up.

[wryter2000]

3. I thought Latino was the accepted term

The O ending means masculine, and the X was put at the end to make it gender neutral. I rather like it.

I’m an old white lady, too, so I’ll use whatever is considered polite, but it would sure be nice to have something that isn’t masculine.

[Hekate]

4. Latina is for women and girls, always has been. Some folks got irked at the language of their ...

… papis and mamis or abualas and abuelos being so gendered when they were trying to get beyond all that.

Well, when we were younger we had to hash out Ms and a bunch of other stuff ourselves, so it’s not that much of a reach. In my lifetime I’ve been thru several iterations of what people want their race to be called — and if you are my generation, so have you, and we can remember what our grandparents thought was polite but is now not simply old-fashioned but offensive. I try to keep up, but also try to assume goodwill on the part of others.

[FBaggins]

16. This is the problem with "Latinx"

It isn’t “the language of their papis” (as in their chosen manner of speech) it’s literally their language. Essentially every noun in Romance languages is “gendered”.

Deciding to use someone’s preferred pronouns is easy. Changing an entire language is not

[wryter2000]

18. It's changing one letter

Not an entire language. I doubt anyone cares that it's la leche or el sombrero.

[wryter2000]

17. It's not that it's gendered per se

For me, it's that the default is male. In English, our plural pronouns are neutral. I prefer Latinx, and I know Latinas who agree. I'm sorry to hear some people don't like it. As a white person, I don't get to decide, but I will go with what Latinas prefer. I still battle with some really old, really sexist language that pops up during Lent in my church, and I know my rector means to be inclusive. Things slip by him, and I have to remind him "toward all men" doesn't include me.

I hear you about terms of address changing. I was raised with "colored" and the less obnoxious N word. It doesn't hurt me to learn what people prefer.

[wryter2000]

2. Okay, but

He uses the term “Hispanic.” I didn’t think that term was respectful. Latino people aren’t Spanish.

[Hekate]

5. Hispanic refers to the Spanish language. Since the Spaniards settled so much of the Americas....

… Spanish is spoken from Mexico thru Central America and all across South America except for Brazil, which the Pope of the time allowed Portugal to have, so Brazilians speak Portuguese. Since California, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, and other states once were Spanish colonies, Spanish surnames and Spanish place names are widely distributed in the “lower 48.” The US bought or conquered and otherwise settled what we now know as the USA, bringing the English language along.

As far as I can tell, what people call themselves depends on the region of the US they live in. As a Californian I can’t remember the last time I heard someone referred to as Chicano. Last time I read anything about that was a long time ago, though. People with Hispanic names may call themselves different things.

[Celerity]

14. You are leaving out the Francophones in the Caribbean and South America (mainly in French Guiana), a

very small amount in Central America, plus the ones now living in the US (majority of those in the US are Haitian or of Haitian descent).

They too are Latin Americans but not Hispanics.

[Igel]

20. A lot of people exclude Francophones.

Some exclude Lusophones.

Usage varies, and I've had Lusophones insist they were *not* Latino (part of "we don't want to be included in *that* group&quot . And people with ancestors from Central America insisting the same thing--Brazilian =/= Latino (part of "that's *our* label&quot .



The US census definition is a bit awkward--it includes those from Latin America and then restricts it: "a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race."

[Celerity]

21. well, 'Latin America' is derived from its Romance language speakers, which Portuguese and French are

Spanish, and those other 2 are derived from Latin (Roman standard form) as their main bases.

[Hekate]

24. Thank you, I did. But I was trying to not write a dissertation using only Google, and as I freely

…admit, the region I know best is California and points West. The only Islands I am familiar with, really, are those I grew up in: Hawai’i. I try not to explicate the history of the Caribbean, and appreciate others doing so. I would never have referred to them as Hispanic in the first place.

California was indeed a Spanish colony, as were the other now-US states along that long border with Mexico. I was surprised at how far north from them the Spaniards reached and claimed. (I was also surprised that the story of Sir Francis Drake stopping off in California was a 1937 scholarly hoax, unmasked long after my 4th grade California history class. Seeking the Northwest Passage in his circumnavigation of the globe, it appears he landed his ship in modern day Oregon, based on anthropological evidence of his descriptions of the Native Americans he encountered.)

But ask me anything about Father Junipero Serra, more recently made a Roman Catholic saint, and currently an object of some acrimony among people whose California ancestors were subjugated by the conquistadores and rather forcefully converted by the padres. He’s actually in the news in the last several years.

I try to use Google to remind myself of things I used to know off the top of my head, and end up learning things as well.

[Celerity]

25. TBF, my mum is Bajan, and I know much of the Caribbean like the back of my hand.

for instance, Barbados is technically not even in the Caribbean, it is an Atlantic island, but it also is a West Indian nation, and very much socio-culturally, economically, and politically integrated into the Caribbean islands

[JoanofArgh]

6. I know and work with people who have Mexican/South American

heritage and they absolutely hate the term.

[Novara]

11. Call me old fashioned, but maybe we should ask THEM what they prefer to be called?

Isn't the height of white arrogance to determine what we should call people? What do THEY prefer??

[JoanofArgh]

22. YES! This exactly.

[Ron Obvious]

23. Who is "them"?

There's probably no consensus among the different sub-populations. I agree that "LatinX" is tin-eared.

[Easterncedar]

7. Non gendering is gaining momentum everywhere

I’m conflicted about it in some cases. (Pregnant people replacing pregnant women for one.) Wish there were better options on this term.

[wryter2000]

19. Pregnant people makes me laugh

I don't really care. It just sounds funny. I know one man whose wife corrected him when he said "we are pregnant." Sho reminded him that he was not going through pregnancy. She was.

[Voltaire2]

8. Why is this important to you?

[Dorian Gray]

10. Probably because

Republicans are making inroads with the Latin American communities, and he'd prefer that community to keep voting for Dems.

[Amishman]

13. This, if the people to whom the term would apply don't want/use it - then I don't support it

and it is arrogant and rude to push it. I won't use it until they want me to.

[hlthe2b]

15. I agree. And, every article I've seen about this in the past several years has indicated

the term originated OUTSIDE the Hispanic communnity and was neither used nor excepted WITHIN.

I'm happy to adopt the terms of choice that those of Spanish-speaking community members prefer, but I've seen absolutely NOTHING to suggest that LATINX is that term. It reeks of an imposed term from those without a stake in that community, that populace. It has been brought up in Colorado in prior recent years by Hispanic reporters for Denver Post and local Hispanic media addressing the many large neighborhoods with predominantly Hispanic populations. While a few of the youngest members had heard of it and were okay with it, the majority had not and were not.

[Dorian Gray]

9. I agree with Ritchie Torres

I work with a large Latin American population, and nobody uses that term. The people who do use the term? The white do-gooders in the non-profit world. The kids and parents we work with who come from South American, Central American and Caribbean countries? They don't use the term.

I have been told by people from those countries why they don't like it. (Mostly it boils down to "It's not from our language/culture.&quot

[Celerity]

12. I tried using Latinx for a while, and it was frowned upon (far from just in DU) by many people of

of Latino/Latina descent and people actually living in Latin America, so I stopped using it.

As for non binary people, just call them non binary Latin Americans.

Also, Hispanic is DEFFO NOT interchangeable with Latino/Latina. It leaves out all non Spanish speaking Latin Americans, like French and Portuguese speakers in the Caribbean, Brasil, and French Guiana, plus non Spanish speakers of Latin American descent in the US.