[cwkoss]

"About One-in-Four U.S. Hispanics Have Heard of Latinx, but Just 3% Use It" (as of Aug 2020):

https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in...

The term doesn't even have a broadly accepted spanish pronunciation yet!

I think the term exemplifies the issues that occur when (especially white) "diversity professionals" are given institutional power to speak on behalf of racial groups they are not a part of.

I'm happy to refer to individuals who identify as latinx as such, but I think it is wildly presumptive and slightly offensive to assume this form should be preferred in general when the Latino community has not yet accepted it. Something about the academic/professional class in America defining the term for a diverse group of people spread over multiple continents rubs me as off-putting and ironically colonialist. (But I'm a white dude, so my opinion doesn't even matter and we should all happily use whatever term becomes accepted by the Latino community)

Latine seems to be gaining some steam as well, and makes a lot more sense: -e is the gender neutral suffix in spanish. However, it is still not broadly accepted (as can be seen in this comment section)

https://remezcla.com/culture/latinx-latine-comic/

[azinman2]

I guess what I don't understand is why 'Latin' isn't preferred when speaking in English.

[refenestrator]

Latin would be ungendered, but it's been said for years by all sorts of people so it doesn't serve the cultural signalling purposes to show that you're enlightened. Gotta use that x to demonstrate your tribal allegiance.

[joshuamorton]

Latin also doesn't imply "of south or central America" in the way latino/latina/latinx/latiné (which is the other approach that's gender neutral and easier to pronounce that I've seen) do. Latin implies, at least to me central European, old and vaguely Italian, as opposed to Latino.

You could also use "Latin American", which may also work, but historically Latino/a have been preferred, possibly since "Latino" is a lot easier to say than "Latinoamericano".

[SpicyLemonZest]

The question is, preferred by whom? Most Hispanic people use "Hispanic", and almost all of the remainder use "Latino". The other terms are fashion statements to show that the speaker keeps up with new intellectual trends, so they lose preference whenever they become too well known; you can date groups like fossil records by seeing whether their name uses "Latinx", "Latina/o", "Latin@", or "Latin".

[krrrh]

Or the already widely adopted Hispanic.

[pseudalopex]

Hispanic means Spanish speaking. Spain is Hispanic but not Latin. Brazil is Latin but not Hispanic.

[slg]

I think phrasing it as 3% is a little misleading. Another way to view that same study is roughly 15% of Hispanics (and 21% of Hispanic women) who have heard the word have almost immediately adopted using it to describe themselves. That gives a slightly different picture on its adoption.

I did some quick searching and couldn't find parallels for adoption rates among other groups for new terminology. For example, the Black community has gone through several different self identifying nomenclature changes over the years. Were any of those changes immediately and universally accepted within a handful of years? My guess is probably not.

[malandrew]

And what about the remainder that hear it and reject it? Are they not considered?

I'm Latino myself and I find that almost no one that actually speaks either Spanish or Portuguese (or another language commonly spoken in Latin America) as their first language adopts it. The few I've seen adopt it at those that are born and raised in the US and have relatively literal cultural connection to the country of their ancestors.

If Spanish or Portuguese are truly your native tongue, Latinx feels incredibly awkward. Personally, I'm uninterested in the opinions of those who aren't native speakers of one of these two languages when it comes to using the term Latinx or not.

[slg]

>And what about the remainder that hear it and reject it? Are they not considered?

I don't know how you got that from my comment. I am not advocating for Latinx as the one and only descriptor. I am simply pointing out that it is being adopted quickly considering how recently it entered the lexicon.

>I'm Latino myself and I find that almost no one that actually speaks either Spanish or Portuguese (or another language commonly spoken in Latin America) as their first language adopts it. The few I've seen adopt it at those that are born and raised in the US and have relatively literal cultural connection to the country of their ancestors.

>If Spanish or Portuguese are truly your native tongue, Latinx feels incredibly awkward.

I can't deny your experience, but I will simply say the numbers from that survey do not agree with your conclusions. The percentage of people who adopt Latinx actually grows for people who use Spanish more. The rough adoption rates are 10% for English dominant speakers, 14% for bilingual speakers, and 29% for Spanish dominant speakers.

>Personally, I'm uninterested in the opinions of those who aren't native speakers of one of these two languages when it comes to using the term Latinx or not.

I don't think this type of gatekeeping is productive. It is meant to be a ethnic identity. Anyone of that identities as part of the group should have an equal input on the naming conventions. I'm not aware of any other ethnic group in the US that is defined by different names depending on their native language.

[cwkoss]

That is a good point.

From a data science perspective, I'd argue that "a (sub)demographic exists where >50% of people who have heard of the term use it to self identify" could be a good indication of when society should interpret a term as "meaningfully prominent". It looks like there is no demographic which exceeds a 30% proportion of heard to using Latinx.

I wonder if the term reaches this proposed 50% threshold within the college-educated LGBT 18-29y/o Latino/x/e population.