Evolving identity: Latinx or Latino?
If you’re familiar with the word Latinx, a gender-neutral variant of Latino and Latina, you’re most likely a young, Democratically leaning, U.S.born college graduate, according to recent Pew Research Center.
Pew published a report in August which found only 23% of Hispanic adults in the U.S. are familiar with the term Latinx and only 3% say they actually use it, though that number has been ticking up slightly since 2016.
Language evolves. Words go in and out of fashion; definitions expand and constrict.
This is natural.
What isn’t natural is a segment of the culture attempting to cram down yet another a unnecessary term on the general population for the sake of socalled inclusivity.
Language is a significant battleground in the current culture war — its importance in influencing norms and values shouldn’t be underestimated.
The term Latinx encompasses individuals who don’t identify as entirely male or female, typically members of the LGBTQ population. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the Hispanic population largely could not care less about its use — why should its use extend more broadly then, and why are academics and leaders using it so piously?
After all, language tends to evolve from the bottom up in an almost Darwinian process. Effective vernacular slang permeates social and class boundaries far easier than terms cooked up by the intelligentsia.
On another note, Pew Research also indicates that people typically prefer identifying themselves by country of origin, e,g., Mexican or Ecuadorean, rather than pan-ethnic terms like Hispanic or Latino, which center on a shared language rather than ethnicity,
Politicians, academics and corporations using Latinx are attempting to be inclusive, but this top-down imposition of the term simply isn’t needed, according to the polls.
Let language develop naturally. Retiring outdated, offensive slang is necessary, but championing such a shift in grammar seems more like a woke gesture than an actual effort to promote equality.