Is "Latinx" really a thing? Or did Republicans make that a bigger thing than it actually was?

[In It to Win It]

How did Democrats get tagged with the word "Latinx"?

I'm aware that this is a term that some people use the term. Never really seemed to be a very widely used term. I think maybe I've heard AOC say it once. Apparently, now they think every single Democrat says it according to "Democratic strategists" and pundits as an excuse for the decrease in the Latino vote for Dems?

My assumption is that this was a part of their "anti-woke" bullshit.

[Elessar Zappa]

1. I've seen it used but

it’s been highly exaggerated by Republicans.

[CoopersDad]

2. Let a west coast woke person explain...

I'm in Santa Cruz County, California.

It makes sense as a gender neutral way to address a demographic.

LatinA or LatinO is gender specific, the X became a way to include the hes, shes, as well anyone who identifies as they/them.

Not a rightwing thing, IMHO.

[In It to Win It]

3. I get that. I'm not saying it's a right wing thing. How did Democrats get tagged with it?

How did it become perceived as a thing that Democrats do?

I was saying the hysteria around the word is created by the right.

[Skittles]

6. because repukes hate ANYTHING that is "inclusive"

they thrive on ignorance and hatred

[brush]

9. I keep hearing Latinos say that in proper Spanish, the word Latinos is how to refer to a group...

Last edited Fri Nov 8, 2024, 02:47 PM - Edit history (1)

of Latins no matter if there are women in the group. The masculine gender term is dominate. Perhaps that explains the machismo that many Latino men have in spades.

Also, Latinx is considered a made-up word and is not accepted by most Latinos, therefore we probably shouldn't use it.

[CoopersDad]

15. Agreed, I don't use the term myself.

And I don't hear it used much among the diverse population here, among the actual people to whom it applies, except for some of the more politically active and younger among them.

I live in Aptos but do all my shopping in Watsonville and attend more of their City Council meetings than I do City of Santa Cruz meetings. I live smack in the middle and just relate more to the working class culture than I do the SC City mix.

[DeepWinter]

22. My 3 latina

coworkers hate "LatinX". Like, HATE, hate it. They consider it white people once again trying to strip them of their culture and language "because white people know better". I learned quickly LatinX outside of the liberal sphere that uses it, is equivalent to the n-word. It's certainly divisive in the community.

[emulatorloo]

34. Sorry, Latino is the gender neutral form in Spanish. OTOH I have not heard "Latinx" used in 5 years.

5 years of more. It was a fad that got quickly shot down.

[applegrove]

4. I think it was in 2020 it was used alot. GOP saw an opening

in those men that hated the word latinx, I bet.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

31. It wasn't just men who hated the word

Pretty much every hispanic person I know, man or woman, absolutely hated that word. They viewed it as a made up nonsense word pushed on them by white elites. Spanish is a gendered language, its up to native speakers to make changes to it if they want and it seems they overwhelmingly do not want to.

[Qutzupalotl]

5. Alex Wagner used it repeatedly in an interview with John Leguziamo.

He would not criticize her use of it, but would politely refer to his people as Latino. Then she'd say Latinx again. And he would again use the word Latino. Then she did It third and even a fourth time, totally clueless. It was cringe-inducing. She came off condescending and too PC for anyone's good.

[LeftInTX]

7. It's supposed based on a third gender (trans, cross)

LGBT, non-binary etc

It's sorta like the new English pronouns that I can't keep track of.

[mahina]

8. A story on national public radio that was otherwise excellent recently said that the term is not viewed favorably by an

overwhelming percentage of Hispanic folks, I don't remember the % but it was a bunch. They preferred Hispanic!

[Wanderlust988]

10. AOC said she uses the term and sees nothing wrong with it

Which is precisely why lost touch with most the Latinos outside of NYC.

[Sympthsical]

11. It was actually a thing

Hoo boy did the community not like that. Once politicians started using it - which peaked around 2020 when even President Biden was using the term during his campaign - the pushback was rapid and fierce.

The politicians quickly stopped using it, because they saw the writing on the wall.

It was pure "Out of touch activists - mainly white - dictate to a minority community how their culture is going to be." It crystallized something Latinos were feeling about being condescended to and ignored.

I remember posting about it on DU two or three years ago with, "So, have people ever actually met Latinos?" Because people here were fiercely defending this stuff. "Well AOC said it was ok!" Look, I love AOC. But she sometimes goes deep in the activist weeds where the community just ain't livin.

It's not good electoral practice to pick fights no one asked for with your voting base.

Did Republicans inflate and publicize it? Of course they did. They saw something a Democratic constituency really, really didn't like and went to town on it. When your opponent is scoring own goals on that level, you'd be foolish not to capitalize.

[Shrek]

12. Elizabeth Warren has it on her merchandise

https://shop.elizabethwarren.com/products/elizabeth-warren-latinx-with-warren-unisex-t-shirt

[RJ_MacReady]

14. she should remove it

Its well established by now Latinos really do not like the term and find it offensive to their language and culture.

[Jk23]

26. I can't speak for every corporation

My Corporation uses it constantly in internal memos DEI lessons and things of that sort.

It's a fairly Progressive Corporation run by Millennial college graduates who definitely buy into changing the speech to make it more gender friendly.

[dameatball]

13. I never heard the word until a couple days ago....on DU. Not sure why.

[MineralMan]

16. It's not the word that is the issue.

Instead, it is the tendency to lump everyone together who have one common thing about them. So, if there is Spanish language in someone's background or ancestry, we tend to lump everyone with that common thing together.

We ignore everything else. So, the recent undocumented immigrant gets lumped in with people who have lived in the USA for several generations. The person from Puerto Rico gets lumped in with the person from Argentina. Never mind that those are two very different, very distinct places with different histories and backgrounds.

We do this a lot here in the USA. It seems to simplify how we think about minority populations. We talk about "Asians" in the same way, ignoring the vast differences between someone from Japan and someone from India. It's easier to lump them all together.

Trouble is that those groups know the differences, and do not lump themselves. So, they get understandable pissed with we do that for them.

And there it is.

[Zeitghost]

27. The word itself is absolutely the problem

Language is powerful and the core of a culture. Those who speak Spanish and come from Spanish speaking cultures don't look kindly on elitist whites who want to restructure their language so it better fits their own ideas of gender.

It's not about grouping multiple ethnicities and nationalities under a common banner, although that is also a related problem. The issue was inventing words in a language we don't speak to make them more acceptable to others who don't speak it. That is incredibly arrogant and insulting.

[MineralMan]

28. Yes, of course.

However, the word happened because we lump groups of people together to enable us to label them. It is the tendency to apply labels as a control mechanism that is the problem.

I speak Spanish. I grew up in a community that was 1/3 Hispanic. My first year in elementary school was the first year that school become integrated. Before that, it had been the school where all the Hispanic kids went. So, all my friends spoke Spanish at home. Since I visited their homes, I learned Spanish so I could communicate with the Spanish speakers there.

That was in the early 1950s. The problem existed then, and it still exists. Things have changed, but only a little. There are those who want to change them back - a lot!

[bigtree]

17. it's so 2015

...that I loled when I heard that.

[Alice B.]

18. I thought it was more an a academic's thing

Than “a thing.” And its use more specific to certain demographic and psychographic profiles.

Two years ago, I took a multi-cultural marketing class and read a lot of “who actually even uses this term?” Think pieces. A lot of them also pointed to the differences between Latin and Hispanic.

All I can say for sure is that is, as a middle-aged white lady, I feel weird using it.

[Ysabel]

19. well good now another thing er "thing" is a bit more clear...

I don't want to offend anybody (except maybe sometimes repuke nazis) but sometimes I get really (really) mixed up...

- I am somewhat / slightly insane (just a little bit) after all which is a direct result of TMR (too many repukes)...

[Alice B.]

23. Me too

I get you 200%.
I generally err on the side of shutting up.
Especially now. After awkwardly offering up what I did or did not learn in grad school.

[Jose Garcia]

20. The DNC certainly used it

https://events.democrats.org/event/729864/

https://events.democrats.org/event/705936/

https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Latinx-Voting-Rights-Toolkit-English.pdf

https://events.democrats.org/event/118433/

[EllieBC]

21. It goes back to about 2016 Leftbook

And it was mostly white people trying to make it a thing.

Often well educated young white people proving education doesn’t make you smart. Many languages are gendered and the majority of the speakers of gendered languages aren’t bothered by it.

Strangely enough, or maybe not, white English speakers seemed the most offended by the notion of gendered languages.

[BannonsLiver]

24. Listen to Ruben Gallego talk about how dumb it is

?si=Q7FkOd01ls9W3ybZ

[Prairie Gates]

25. If you use any other term in a university humanities department meeting

You will be fielding calls from human resources and three separate committees on equity before the sun goes down.

[rollin74]

29. that's insane

[Prairie Gates]

30. I'm exaggerating

But not really.

[comradebillyboy]

32. Nicole Wallace and other MSNBC talking heads

really pushed the LatinX thing back in the spring and summer before it became obvious that actual Hispanic folks really hated the term.

[EllieBC]

33. I notice no one bothered the French.

The French would have told them where to stick it, using gendered language.