6 ms·

I've been really curious about where the "Latinx" actually originates from -- I'd suspected in academia, and indeed the first usage seems to have been in a pape

by pen2l 6y ago

I've been really curious about where the "Latinx" actually originates from -- I'd suspected in academia, and indeed the first usage seems to have been in a paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx#Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx#Origins Why does it seem cringey? Is it cringey when Fauci uses it? He uses it every time he's referring to Latinos. This Vice video, where Dee asks people on the street about the term, gives the impression that Latino (or, ahem, Latinx :)) folks are mostly fine with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zx4m2ok6D0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zx4m2ok6D0

tptacek 6y ago
Here's Pew, which I trust more than a Vice person-on-the-street interview: just 1/4 of Latinos have even head of the term, and only 3% use it. They're mostly just wondering what the hell Very Online People are on about. https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in-four-u-s-hispanics-have-heard-of-latinx-but-just-3-use-it/ https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in... Again: zero objection to people using the term "Latinx" for themselves! If you tell me you identify "Latinx", that's the term I'll use for you. I understand that it's a serious and important term, for instance, for LGBT people. But that just makes Warren's use of it all the goofier. When she talks about helping Latinx people, are we meant to infer that she's specifically talking about LGBT people of Latin descent?
rayiner 6y ago
Latino/Latina are from Spanish. The words are gendered because it’s a gendered language. When non-Spanish speakers change it to Latinx it comes across as them declaring Spanish as problematic and “fixing” someone else’s language for them. There is also a class/education issue. It’s a term originating in academia that non-college educated people have mostly never heard of. Being called by a label that you don’t recognize is alienating. Languages are extremely sensitive things. People go to war over them. It’s one thing for academics to mess around with words, but politicians should be very careful about doings so. Matt Yglesias has a good article on it: https://www.vox.com/2020/11/5/21548677/trump-hispanic-vote-latinx https://www.vox.com/2020/11/5/21548677/trump-hispanic-vote-l... More generally, Elizabeth Warren leans too much on intersectional rhetoric and it’s alienating at least to me and I suspect others. I’m a “brown person” but I don’t see America as a country where “white” people are in perpetual conflict with “black and brown” people. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote-strategy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote... > Progressives commonly categorize Latinos as people of color, no doubt partly because progressive Latinos see the group that way and encourage others to do so as well. Certainly, we both once took that perspective for granted. Yet in our survey, only one in four Hispanics saw the group as people of color. > In contrast, the majority rejected this designation. They preferred to see Hispanics as a group integrating into the American mainstream, one not overly bound by racial constraints but instead able to get ahead through hard work. Going full critical race theory like Warren has, and talking about how we must fix the water infrastructure maintenance deficit because of how it affects “black and brown” people is otherizing. You’re putting me in a bucket and now I’m thinking about that instead of water infrastructure. It would be easy for Democrats if all non-whites had a strong pattern of voting out of racial solidarity. And this premise filters into their rhetoric. But I’m not going to vote Democrat out of racial solidarity and frankly I deeply resent the implication. It’s also alienating in a similar sense to “latinx.” A lot of the progressive rhetoric over the last four years centered this idea of a rainbow coalition of “black and brown” and LGBT people. What does that coalition have in common? If you look at countries run by “black and brown people” homosexuality is often illegal. Even among American Muslims, which tend to support same-sec marriage as a legal matter, it is strongly taboo. Almost no US mosques will perform a same-sex marriage and few American Muslims openly self-identify as LGBT: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/28/us/lgbt-muslims-pride-progress/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/28/us/lgbt-muslims-pride-progres.... Most Bangladeshis I know are Democrats and have reconciled themselves to the platform, but would be very upset if their son came out as gay. The only thing that coalition actually has in common, other than universal American principles, is a common enemy. That doesn’t make for great politics, so part of the whole progressive project is putting for example an LGBT-friendly face on Islam. Folks like Ilhan Omar are not representative of Muslims in America. American Muslims are socially conservative—traditional notions of family part of their identity. They voted for George W. Bush. But progressives have made Ilhan Omar the face of Muslims in America. (Even my dad, who is a moderately liberal Democrat, mentioned this as something that annoyed him without prompting.) And all that just feels like white progressives hijacking people’s identity for political purposes. Now, it’s fair game to solicit the vote of identity groups based on issues. George W. Bush’s pitch to Muslims was “you’re socially conservative and religious and so am I.” That’s appealing on a specific issue and leaves open the independence of the groups.
- pen2l 6y ago
  Don't entirely agree with what some of what you've said but upvoting you nevertheless as clearly you argue in good faith (and to get you out of negative score), that aside -- you say: > It’s a term originating in academia that non-college educated people have mostly never heard of. Being called by a label that you don’t recognize is alienating. Okay, so the word is an academic construct. But it comes from a good place: an effort to be more inclusive. I will understand if everyday folks don't subscribe to the latest code and vocabulary of a younger progressive society, and I understand any resistance to new vocabulary, but that is no reason to stop progress. You can't deny that embedded in our language are the biases of our history, and it's possible that a natural evolution of language may not get us out of this, so why not let a prescriptivist push get us out, even if it comes from academia? Separately, curious to hear your thoughts on changes imposed by Académie Française in recent years toward a similar direction of being more inclusive.
  - JamesBarney 6y ago
    Rayiner is making an argument about whether politicians should use the word. He argued no and I think that's right. You're trying to pull him into a separate argument which is should individuals use latinx or latino. (The obvious answer here is to use whatever word who you're talking to would prefer)
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Inclusivity isn’t a single axis. When a politician calls a group of people by a label that’s unfamiliar to them and that they don’t recognize or identify with, that’s exclusionary and alienating. Example: I’m from Bangladesh. It means “country of Bengalis.” We fought an independence war with Pakistan to have a country for our own ethnic/linguistic group. The name of the country is exclusionary of the non-Bengali ethnic and linguistic groups, including the indigenous population. If an academic wants to come up with a different label for us, they can do that. But politicians shouldn’t use it until we broadly accept the label. It’s not Elizabeth Warren’s place to take a prescriptive position on what Bangladeshis call themselves. Stepping back, identity and how it’s defined and what it’s defined by reference to is an explosively complicated issue. Focusing on issues like gender inclusivity is a western, and particularly American, way of looking at language and identity labels. Different cultures will sort out how they want to approach these issues. It’s not something white Americans like Elizabeth Warren should just parachute into. > Académie Française The French can do what they want with their own language. But as an Anglophile I have to point out that they could easily solve the problem of gendering in French by just speaking English instead. That would also solve their problem of having to come up with French words for things invented by English-speakers.

by pen2l 6y ago

tptacek 6y ago

Here's Pew, which I trust more than a Vice person-on-the-street interview: just 1/4 of Latinos have even head of the term, and only 3% use it. They're mostly just wondering what the hell Very Online People are on about. https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in-four-u-s-hispanics-have-heard-of-latinx-but-just-3-use-it/ https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in... Again: zero objection to people using the term "Latinx" for themselves! If you tell me you identify "Latinx", that's the term I'll use for you. I understand that it's a serious and important term, for instance, for LGBT people. But that just makes Warren's use of it all the goofier. When she talks about helping Latinx people, are we meant to infer that she's specifically talking about LGBT people of Latin descent?

rayiner 6y ago

Latino/Latina are from Spanish. The words are gendered because it’s a gendered language. When non-Spanish speakers change it to Latinx it comes across as them declaring Spanish as problematic and “fixing” someone else’s language for them. There is also a class/education issue. It’s a term originating in academia that non-college educated people have mostly never heard of. Being called by a label that you don’t recognize is alienating. Languages are extremely sensitive things. People go to war over them. It’s one thing for academics to mess around with words, but politicians should be very careful about doings so. Matt Yglesias has a good article on it: https://www.vox.com/2020/11/5/21548677/trump-hispanic-vote-latinx https://www.vox.com/2020/11/5/21548677/trump-hispanic-vote-l... More generally, Elizabeth Warren leans too much on intersectional rhetoric and it’s alienating at least to me and I suspect others. I’m a “brown person” but I don’t see America as a country where “white” people are in perpetual conflict with “black and brown” people. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote-strategy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote... > Progressives commonly categorize Latinos as people of color, no doubt partly because progressive Latinos see the group that way and encourage others to do so as well. Certainly, we both once took that perspective for granted. Yet in our survey, only one in four Hispanics saw the group as people of color. > In contrast, the majority rejected this designation. They preferred to see Hispanics as a group integrating into the American mainstream, one not overly bound by racial constraints but instead able to get ahead through hard work. Going full critical race theory like Warren has, and talking about how we must fix the water infrastructure maintenance deficit because of how it affects “black and brown” people is otherizing. You’re putting me in a bucket and now I’m thinking about that instead of water infrastructure. It would be easy for Democrats if all non-whites had a strong pattern of voting out of racial solidarity. And this premise filters into their rhetoric. But I’m not going to vote Democrat out of racial solidarity and frankly I deeply resent the implication. It’s also alienating in a similar sense to “latinx.” A lot of the progressive rhetoric over the last four years centered this idea of a rainbow coalition of “black and brown” and LGBT people. What does that coalition have in common? If you look at countries run by “black and brown people” homosexuality is often illegal. Even among American Muslims, which tend to support same-sec marriage as a legal matter, it is strongly taboo. Almost no US mosques will perform a same-sex marriage and few American Muslims openly self-identify as LGBT: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/28/us/lgbt-muslims-pride-progress/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/28/us/lgbt-muslims-pride-progres.... Most Bangladeshis I know are Democrats and have reconciled themselves to the platform, but would be very upset if their son came out as gay. The only thing that coalition actually has in common, other than universal American principles, is a common enemy. That doesn’t make for great politics, so part of the whole progressive project is putting for example an LGBT-friendly face on Islam. Folks like Ilhan Omar are not representative of Muslims in America. American Muslims are socially conservative—traditional notions of family part of their identity. They voted for George W. Bush. But progressives have made Ilhan Omar the face of Muslims in America. (Even my dad, who is a moderately liberal Democrat, mentioned this as something that annoyed him without prompting.) And all that just feels like white progressives hijacking people’s identity for political purposes. Now, it’s fair game to solicit the vote of identity groups based on issues. George W. Bush’s pitch to Muslims was “you’re socially conservative and religious and so am I.” That’s appealing on a specific issue and leaves open the independence of the groups.

pen2l 6y ago
Don't entirely agree with what some of what you've said but upvoting you nevertheless as clearly you argue in good faith (and to get you out of negative score), that aside -- you say: > It’s a term originating in academia that non-college educated people have mostly never heard of. Being called by a label that you don’t recognize is alienating. Okay, so the word is an academic construct. But it comes from a good place: an effort to be more inclusive. I will understand if everyday folks don't subscribe to the latest code and vocabulary of a younger progressive society, and I understand any resistance to new vocabulary, but that is no reason to stop progress. You can't deny that embedded in our language are the biases of our history, and it's possible that a natural evolution of language may not get us out of this, so why not let a prescriptivist push get us out, even if it comes from academia? Separately, curious to hear your thoughts on changes imposed by Académie Française in recent years toward a similar direction of being more inclusive.
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  Rayiner is making an argument about whether politicians should use the word. He argued no and I think that's right. You're trying to pull him into a separate argument which is should individuals use latinx or latino. (The obvious answer here is to use whatever word who you're talking to would prefer)
- rayiner 6y ago
  Inclusivity isn’t a single axis. When a politician calls a group of people by a label that’s unfamiliar to them and that they don’t recognize or identify with, that’s exclusionary and alienating. Example: I’m from Bangladesh. It means “country of Bengalis.” We fought an independence war with Pakistan to have a country for our own ethnic/linguistic group. The name of the country is exclusionary of the non-Bengali ethnic and linguistic groups, including the indigenous population. If an academic wants to come up with a different label for us, they can do that. But politicians shouldn’t use it until we broadly accept the label. It’s not Elizabeth Warren’s place to take a prescriptive position on what Bangladeshis call themselves. Stepping back, identity and how it’s defined and what it’s defined by reference to is an explosively complicated issue. Focusing on issues like gender inclusivity is a western, and particularly American, way of looking at language and identity labels. Different cultures will sort out how they want to approach these issues. It’s not something white Americans like Elizabeth Warren should just parachute into. > Académie Française The French can do what they want with their own language. But as an Anglophile I have to point out that they could easily solve the problem of gendering in French by just speaking English instead. That would also solve their problem of having to come up with French words for things invented by English-speakers.