4 ms·

As a fellow Latin American, I find "LatinX" offensive. English already has a gender neutral adjective to refer to us, Latin, and therefore Latin American. Lat

As a fellow Latin American, I find "LatinX" offensive. English already has a gender neutral adjective to refer to us, Latin, and therefore Latin American. LatinX means you've internalized the colonialization of white "liberals" [0] who would refer to us as Latinos or Latinas while speaking English to show off their poor Spanish and therefore pretend to be sophisticated and woke. [0] I don't consider liberal bad or good, just that the people who use latino/a/X seem to self-identify as liberals.

homonculus1 7y ago
That only just occurred to me as I was reading OP's comment. The construction of "LatinX" has always bothered me for how contrived and nonstandard it is, but I think what's really been getting under my skin is that it's entirely superfluous. The meaning is entirely legitimate but since the word for it already exists I can't see any purpose for such a weird new one other than signaling woke group affiliation.
- ergfdgs 7y ago
  I read a recent poll that 90% of Latin Americans don't like the term.
  - lordgrenville 7y ago
    The poll is here [0]. It was discussed recently in an NYT oped here [1]. It was an interesting result that definitely altered my opinion. [0] https://medium.com/@ThinkNowTweets/progressive-latino-pollster-trust-me-latinos-do-not-identify-with-latinx-63229adebcea https://medium.com/@ThinkNowTweets/progressive-latino-pollst... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/opinion/latinix-warren-democrats.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/opinion/latinix-warren-de...
    - lovehashbrowns 7y ago
      Wait, that question is awful. As a Hispanic person, I would also put "Hispanic" but that doesn't put into context why. If someone sees me, reads my name, and uses that to refer to me as Latinx, I wouldn't be offended at all, and would prefer Latinx over something like Hispanic.
sbilstein 7y ago
I too hate the term LatinX but it's become the preferred term around so many I know that I'd rather just conform than argue about it. Just cause I used it doesn't mean I endorse it.
- ergfdgs 7y ago
  You're Latin American! Impose the right terminology! This is cultural colonialism from the, typically WASP, urban elite. Who possibly finds Spanish's gendered pronouns annoying? How many are them are native Spanish speakers? And yet they feel slighted and therefore try to impose their (typically poor) Spanish on us! They ignore that, technically, Spanish has three genders (the neutral which is almost, but not completely, withered away; see "esto/este/esta"). So, even in Spanish, "Latin" would be a far more correct gender neutral form. They ignore that objects can have multiple genders according to the synonyms used to refer to them. They ignore that linguistic "gender" has little to do with gender, the term appears to have been coined by Aristotle to refer to sets of nouns, which largely follow gender when applied to people. Why are on Earth are we accepting of unpronounceable adjectives and nouns (the -nX soup of constants being especially unpronounceable for us native Spanish speakers!)
  - sbilstein 7y ago
    For real, I've looked into this and in LatAm some people prefer Latines as the neutral collective noun. I like that myself cause I'm down with gender neutrality but everyone thinks it's a fucking typo so I give up. Outside of the Bay Area tech scene, I can't imagine I would ever use LatinX in Spanish conversation. I choose my battles.
    - TurkishPoptart 7y ago
      I don't understand what's wrong with the terms "Latino", "Latina", and "Hispanic". These are _Spanish_ words, and we're speaking English, so it doesn't make much sense to invent new words just to appease the tiny activist trans community on Twitter.
- ergfdgs 7y ago
burfog 7y ago
Oh yes. Hispanic is the correct term when speaking English. Latinx is a sign of wanting to show off Spanish (to virtue signal) but actually being intolerant of the way the language works. Values collided, and thus Latinx was born. Using the correct term, Hispanic, just wasn't an option.
- gusmd 7y ago
  As a Brazilian Latin American, there's nothing Hispanic about me or my people. Most of us are some mixture of European (primarily Italian or Portuguese), African, indian (as in the native people of South America) descendents. Our official language is Portuguese.
  - burfog 7y ago
    So you're Brazilian. Latinx, Latino, Latina are not normally used for all Latin-based languages. Italians and French don't qualify either, despite being Latin-based. (Quebec???) It's also not race; the Cherokee do not qualify even if of mixed ancestry. Really it is just a synonym for Hispanic.

homonculus1 7y ago

That only just occurred to me as I was reading OP's comment. The construction of "LatinX" has always bothered me for how contrived and nonstandard it is, but I think what's really been getting under my skin is that it's entirely superfluous. The meaning is entirely legitimate but since the word for it already exists I can't see any purpose for such a weird new one other than signaling woke group affiliation.

ergfdgs 7y ago
I read a recent poll that 90% of Latin Americans don't like the term.
- lordgrenville 7y ago
  The poll is here [0]. It was discussed recently in an NYT oped here [1]. It was an interesting result that definitely altered my opinion. [0] https://medium.com/@ThinkNowTweets/progressive-latino-pollster-trust-me-latinos-do-not-identify-with-latinx-63229adebcea https://medium.com/@ThinkNowTweets/progressive-latino-pollst... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/opinion/latinix-warren-democrats.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/opinion/latinix-warren-de...
  - lovehashbrowns 7y ago
    Wait, that question is awful. As a Hispanic person, I would also put "Hispanic" but that doesn't put into context why. If someone sees me, reads my name, and uses that to refer to me as Latinx, I wouldn't be offended at all, and would prefer Latinx over something like Hispanic.

sbilstein 7y ago

I too hate the term LatinX but it's become the preferred term around so many I know that I'd rather just conform than argue about it. Just cause I used it doesn't mean I endorse it.

ergfdgs 7y ago
You're Latin American! Impose the right terminology! This is cultural colonialism from the, typically WASP, urban elite. Who possibly finds Spanish's gendered pronouns annoying? How many are them are native Spanish speakers? And yet they feel slighted and therefore try to impose their (typically poor) Spanish on us! They ignore that, technically, Spanish has three genders (the neutral which is almost, but not completely, withered away; see "esto/este/esta"). So, even in Spanish, "Latin" would be a far more correct gender neutral form. They ignore that objects can have multiple genders according to the synonyms used to refer to them. They ignore that linguistic "gender" has little to do with gender, the term appears to have been coined by Aristotle to refer to sets of nouns, which largely follow gender when applied to people. Why are on Earth are we accepting of unpronounceable adjectives and nouns (the -nX soup of constants being especially unpronounceable for us native Spanish speakers!)
- sbilstein 7y ago
  For real, I've looked into this and in LatAm some people prefer Latines as the neutral collective noun. I like that myself cause I'm down with gender neutrality but everyone thinks it's a fucking typo so I give up. Outside of the Bay Area tech scene, I can't imagine I would ever use LatinX in Spanish conversation. I choose my battles.
  - TurkishPoptart 7y ago
    I don't understand what's wrong with the terms "Latino", "Latina", and "Hispanic". These are _Spanish_ words, and we're speaking English, so it doesn't make much sense to invent new words just to appease the tiny activist trans community on Twitter.
ergfdgs 7y ago

burfog 7y ago

Oh yes. Hispanic is the correct term when speaking English. Latinx is a sign of wanting to show off Spanish (to virtue signal) but actually being intolerant of the way the language works. Values collided, and thus Latinx was born. Using the correct term, Hispanic, just wasn't an option.

gusmd 7y ago
As a Brazilian Latin American, there's nothing Hispanic about me or my people. Most of us are some mixture of European (primarily Italian or Portuguese), African, indian (as in the native people of South America) descendents. Our official language is Portuguese.
- burfog 7y ago
  So you're Brazilian. Latinx, Latino, Latina are not normally used for all Latin-based languages. Italians and French don't qualify either, despite being Latin-based. (Quebec???) It's also not race; the Cherokee do not qualify even if of mixed ancestry. Really it is just a synonym for Hispanic.