More Latinos than ever know the term “Latinx” — And they still don't like it

In 2019, only 23% of the US Latino population was familiar with the term “Latinx,” according to an extensive study published in 2021 by the Pew Research Center.

Five years and one pandemic later, awareness of the term has doubled: Today, 47 percent of U.S. Latinos say they know the word “Latinx,” according to a new Pew Report published in September. But most still don't like it.

Only 4% of Latino adults say they have used Latinx to describe themselves, a fraction over the 3% who said the same in 2019.

Most notably, 75% of Latinos who have heard of the term say it you shouldn't according to the new report. In fact, the report concludes, Latinx is “largely unpopular among Latino adults who have heard it.”

And the dislike has grown. Five years ago, when Pew released its first survey on the recognition and use of Latinx, it found that 65% of adults who know the term rejected it. In other words, as awareness of the word Latinx has grown, its embrace by US Latinos has fallen.

Why is this?

As Bulletin board reported in 2021, when Pew released the surprising findings of its 2019 survey, Latinx is a term born of good intentions. Developed as part of the worldwide movement to use gender-neutral pronouns, it was considered an inclusive term in Spanish, a language where many words are differentiated by gender (Spanish, for example, has no gender-neutral equivalent). the?' instead of using ' la' and 'el' to refer to female and male respectively). The term gained popularity on college campuses and in marketing materials, and by 2018, Merriam Webster added it to its dictionary—where it defines the word as “of, relating to, or characterized by Latin American heritage.”

As an inclusive word, Latinx has made some inroads. According to the Pew study, 40% of the LGBQT community says the term should be used to identify the Latino or Hispanic population. But the majority in the LGBQT community, 60%, still say it shouldn't.

All other segments of the population dislike the term even more. Those who say it shouldn't be used include immigrants (77%), US-born (74%), English-dominant (74%), bilingual (75%), young adults between 18-29 (69%) and even with college degrees (74%).

The antipathy may be the result of “Latinx” feeling like an imposed term separated from the people it's supposed to describe. There is no way to adequately pronounce the word in Spanish, a fact that Merriam Webster itself acknowledges in some of the articles it has published about the word, writing: “More than likely, not much attention was paid to how it was supposed to be pronounced when it was created.”

This is a problem. For one, non-English speakers simply don't know how to pronounce the word. in Spanish, x ix is ​​pronounced eh-quisNo ehks. Furthermore, it appears that the word was not coined by, or for, Hispanics, marking a clear demarcation for those originally identified as Latino.

Antipathy has been duly noted in many quarters. LULAC, one of the nation's oldest Hispanic rights associations, dropped the term from its 2021 announcements, saying it was “Very unacceptable” by most Latinos. And some government officials have gone so far as to recommend banning the word from official government communication. In the wake of the presidential election this month, the validity or otherwise of the word Latinx has been brought up again, but all the craft and dramatic backlash is overblown.

The truth is that there is no consensus among US Latinos on how to describe themselves—which itself reflects the vast majority of the population. According to the Pew study, the majority of respondents, 52%, prefer “Spanish,” followed by 29% who prefer “Latin” or “Latin,” and just 2% prefer Latin. “Latin,” another gender-inclusive adjective that's much easier to pronounce, is less well-known, however. only 18% of respondents had heard the term.

When it comes to “Latin” music, which is defined as music primarily in Spanish, most artists identify as “Latinos”, “Latinos” or “Latinas”. But Spaniards identify as Spaniards, even if they make “Latin” music.

This means that how individuals or groups define themselves should depend on those individuals or groups, and certainly not on commercial and political interests that prohibit, impose or even give opinion.

Since Bulletin board Thus, Latin music will continue to be referred to as “Latin”. And artists who make music in Spanish will continue to be referred to by whatever terminology they prefer.

Overwhelmingly, their term of choice is “Latin”.