In early December, Domingo Garcia, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens announced that all staff should refrain from using “Latinx” in their communications. The LULAC is the U.S.’s oldest Latino civil rights organization and among one of the most influential. The decision was based on findings that the term is “very unliked” by Latinos, according to Garcia.
This became a sort of death knell for the word, which has existed for decades but recently achieved popularity in 2018. Latinx is a word that seeks to amend the patriarchal and gendered language that dominates Spanish. The word allows non-binary Hispanics a chance to describe themselves in their own language, something that Spanish, a very gendered language, previously could not do. Despite its frequent usage amongst political organizations and books, the average Hispanic in the U.S. was not biting.
A Pew Research Center poll from 2020 showed that 23% of U.S. adults who are Hispanic had never even heard the word and only 3% of respondents said they would use it to describe themselves. More recently, and more troubling, Latinx has become politically unfavorable to the average Hispanic voter.
In Nov., Democratic firm Bendixen and Amandi International found that 68% of Latin American respondents preferred the term Hispanic while 21% favored Latino. 40% disagreed with the term Latinx.
Yvette Fuentes, an associate professor in NSU’s Department of Humanities and Politics, has discussed this issue with students in her classes. She believes the unpopularity of Latinx, in most cases, is more innocent than it seems.
“The word ends with an X and in Spanish words don’t typically end with an X. For that reason, I think that people have a problem with it. To some, it sounds non-Spanish,” said Fuentes.
Just a couple months before Garcia’s announcement, playwright Matthew Lopez used another non-binary term while accepting his Tony award. While becoming the first Hispanic in history to win the top drama category, he also made history in a different way.
“This is the 74 Tony awards and yet I am only the first Latine writer to win in this category.” said Lopez.
Latine is a word that serves the same purpose as Latinx, but it is a response to the latter. Latine can be used in the Spanish language seamlessly as compared with Latinx, which stumbles off the tongue.
This is a word that Fuentes says is already gaining more popularity than Latinx.
“I had a student from Puerto Rico say that they actually use it in Puerto Rico, or at least the younger generation,” said Fuentes.
Ultimately, it is up to the next generations to make the change they want to see in the language.
“Change comes from the bottom up so people who use the term naturally will be the ones to make it stick and I feel like Latine will take over as more young people come of age,” said Fuentes.
