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I'm interested (and somewhat taken aback) by the intensity of the reactions to this term. Maybe it's a generational/political thing? For my part, I know signifi

by g_sch 7y ago

I'm interested (and somewhat taken aback) by the intensity of the reactions to this term. Maybe it's a generational/political thing? For my part, I know significantly more people who refer to themselves as "Latinx" than "Latino".

malvosenior 7y ago
People don't like it because it's a political term that doesn't exist for any reason other than to make a political statement. It's a modification of language around the core identity of a group of people, people who did not advocate for the term's usage and still resist it.
eloff 7y ago
Fwiw I lived ten years in Latin America, married a Latina, and have never even heard the term Latinx before. It's probably not common in Latin America.
- friedman23 7y ago
  The term was created by white people.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - ribosometronome 7y ago
    Interesting! What were their names? Were those white people also of Latin American origin?
eindiran 7y ago
"Latinx" is more-or-less a rounding error compared to "Latino"/"Latina"[1], so having people insist that the far more common terms are incorrect (for a political reason) is what is driving the intensity of the reaction. I'm not saying the reaction is right or wrong, but afaict that's the reason people respond the way they do. If you know significantly more people who refer to themselves as "Latinx", I'd wager that you probably live in the ideological bubble surrounding a fairly liberal American city, but there is certainly a generational component: the term is much more commonly used by American Millenials than by anyone else. [1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=latinx,latino,latina https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=latinx,latino,lat...
- lanewinfield 7y ago
  >so having people insist that the far more common terms are incorrect It kind of seems like the opposite is true here...
Phrodo_00 7y ago
I'm from south america, been living in the US for a bit, and never encountered the term. Kind of curious to know where it comes from, and why it has a strong reaction. I feel like it's probably trying to include both genders, since spanish doesn't have a neutral gender, and that normally annoys me, since it's normally pretty clear when you mean actually-male or neutral-male, but I'm not necessarily against it. People from around where I come from would've probably gone with latin@, though.
- egypturnash 7y ago
  How do you say that out loud? La-tii-nat?
  - abrowne 7y ago
    I've heard latinao.
pram 7y ago
I don’t like being called Chicano, Latin, or Hispanic. It’s seemingly only a US thing afaict. My family is from Mexico and “Mexican” suffices. It seems like they’re just terms to lump a bunch of legitimately different people and cultures into a single, convenient demographic. That’s how I feel about it anyway. Not saying people shouldn’t identify with it, if that’s how they feel. :V
- the_pwner224 7y ago
  > It seems like they’re just terms to lump a bunch of legitimately different people and cultures into a single, convenient demographic. I'm an Indian living in the US. If I see another brown skinned person who does not look Indian, what should I call them? There are many Mexicans into the US, but there are also people from other countries in South America etc. I have no idea what Hispanic actually means, but I've heard it (and Latino) commonly used to refer to that group of people in general, and those the words that I use too. If you were in Africa and saw a white skinned person, would you call them American or White? Calling them White would "lump a bunch of legitimately different people and cultures into a single, convenient demographic," but that lumping is necessary since you can't know someone's culture just by looking at them - or even after you have known them for a while.
  - umanwizard 7y ago
    To be technically accurate, you should say they are Native American, or of mixed Native American and European ancestry (btw, the Spanish word for this is “mestizo” which means mixed). I’m aware that nobody actually says this in real life, but this is what people in the US usually mean when they think of “typical Latino-looking person”. In reality though, “Latino” is not a very precise way to describe someone with that phenotype, because just like Canada and the US and other countries with a major history of colonialism, there are people of all racial ancestries in Latin America. This is largely ignored in the Western US, I suspect because most of the “Latino” people there are from Mexico and Central America, where most of the population looks like what you describe. But Latin America started out with all the same major groups that the US did: Native Americans, European settlers, African slaves, Asian immigrants, etc., and so you would expect to find all the same ancestries there as you would in the US, just in different proportions. And indeed, in places like Uruguay and Argentina, the majority of people would be considered “white” according to US racial classification norms. In the Caribbean, many would be considered “black”. In Brazil there are a lot of people of Japanese descent. But even in Mexico there are people who look like this: https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5b147c3d4bbe6f74868b747c/416x416.jpg?background=000000&cropX1=1318&cropX2=3259&cropY1=77&cropY2=2020 https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5b147c3d4bb... That guy is Mexican and Latino and Hispanic by any possible definition of those terms, and also “white” (I.e., of primarily Western European ancestry). The point is: “Latino” and “Hispanic” are not directly connected to phenotypes or biological ancestry in the way you are assuming. In general I don’t understand why it is so important to describe people by their ancestry, as opposed to their actual culture. If you see a white person in India you can be 99.99% sure they are not culturally Indian, but you can’t really conclude anything similar in the US.

by g_sch 7y ago

malvosenior 7y ago

People don't like it because it's a political term that doesn't exist for any reason other than to make a political statement. It's a modification of language around the core identity of a group of people, people who did not advocate for the term's usage and still resist it.

eloff 7y ago

Fwiw I lived ten years in Latin America, married a Latina, and have never even heard the term Latinx before. It's probably not common in Latin America.

friedman23 7y ago
The term was created by white people.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ribosometronome 7y ago
  Interesting! What were their names? Were those white people also of Latin American origin?

eindiran 7y ago

"Latinx" is more-or-less a rounding error compared to "Latino"/"Latina"[1], so having people insist that the far more common terms are incorrect (for a political reason) is what is driving the intensity of the reaction. I'm not saying the reaction is right or wrong, but afaict that's the reason people respond the way they do. If you know significantly more people who refer to themselves as "Latinx", I'd wager that you probably live in the ideological bubble surrounding a fairly liberal American city, but there is certainly a generational component: the term is much more commonly used by American Millenials than by anyone else. [1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=latinx,latino,latina https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=latinx,latino,lat...

lanewinfield 7y ago
>so having people insist that the far more common terms are incorrect It kind of seems like the opposite is true here...

Phrodo_00 7y ago

I'm from south america, been living in the US for a bit, and never encountered the term. Kind of curious to know where it comes from, and why it has a strong reaction. I feel like it's probably trying to include both genders, since spanish doesn't have a neutral gender, and that normally annoys me, since it's normally pretty clear when you mean actually-male or neutral-male, but I'm not necessarily against it. People from around where I come from would've probably gone with latin@, though.

egypturnash 7y ago
How do you say that out loud? La-tii-nat?
- abrowne 7y ago
  I've heard latinao.

pram 7y ago

I don’t like being called Chicano, Latin, or Hispanic. It’s seemingly only a US thing afaict. My family is from Mexico and “Mexican” suffices. It seems like they’re just terms to lump a bunch of legitimately different people and cultures into a single, convenient demographic. That’s how I feel about it anyway. Not saying people shouldn’t identify with it, if that’s how they feel. :V

the_pwner224 7y ago
> It seems like they’re just terms to lump a bunch of legitimately different people and cultures into a single, convenient demographic. I'm an Indian living in the US. If I see another brown skinned person who does not look Indian, what should I call them? There are many Mexicans into the US, but there are also people from other countries in South America etc. I have no idea what Hispanic actually means, but I've heard it (and Latino) commonly used to refer to that group of people in general, and those the words that I use too. If you were in Africa and saw a white skinned person, would you call them American or White? Calling them White would "lump a bunch of legitimately different people and cultures into a single, convenient demographic," but that lumping is necessary since you can't know someone's culture just by looking at them - or even after you have known them for a while.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  To be technically accurate, you should say they are Native American, or of mixed Native American and European ancestry (btw, the Spanish word for this is “mestizo” which means mixed). I’m aware that nobody actually says this in real life, but this is what people in the US usually mean when they think of “typical Latino-looking person”. In reality though, “Latino” is not a very precise way to describe someone with that phenotype, because just like Canada and the US and other countries with a major history of colonialism, there are people of all racial ancestries in Latin America. This is largely ignored in the Western US, I suspect because most of the “Latino” people there are from Mexico and Central America, where most of the population looks like what you describe. But Latin America started out with all the same major groups that the US did: Native Americans, European settlers, African slaves, Asian immigrants, etc., and so you would expect to find all the same ancestries there as you would in the US, just in different proportions. And indeed, in places like Uruguay and Argentina, the majority of people would be considered “white” according to US racial classification norms. In the Caribbean, many would be considered “black”. In Brazil there are a lot of people of Japanese descent. But even in Mexico there are people who look like this: https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5b147c3d4bbe6f74868b747c/416x416.jpg?background=000000&cropX1=1318&cropX2=3259&cropY1=77&cropY2=2020 https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5b147c3d4bb... That guy is Mexican and Latino and Hispanic by any possible definition of those terms, and also “white” (I.e., of primarily Western European ancestry). The point is: “Latino” and “Hispanic” are not directly connected to phenotypes or biological ancestry in the way you are assuming. In general I don’t understand why it is so important to describe people by their ancestry, as opposed to their actual culture. If you see a white person in India you can be 99.99% sure they are not culturally Indian, but you can’t really conclude anything similar in the US.