The first time I heard the word Latinx I was like “wait, what did you call me? Yeah, no, whatever that is I am not that.”
But then they explained it to me. And I came around. So, here’s a few thoughts why I use it myself and for the people I feel a part of.
I call myself Latinx for the same reason I *don’t* call my wife "Mrs. Alvaro M. Bedoya”: women and non-binary people exist and deserve the same respect I do.
Also, I don't want to call people of Latin American descent a term that erases most people of Latin American descent.
“It doesn’t respect the rules of the Spanish language.”
I’d take this seriously if I wasn’t called Al-VAH-ro daily, if we didn’t cross the border to “MeCKSico,” or if there was literally more than one (1) show on TV where supposed Spanish-speakers actually spoke Spanish.
“It’s a term invented by activists. Only 3% of people use it.”
This feels like a headline from a turn of the century newspaper that describes the women’s suffrage movement as "a few uppity ladies in rural upstate New York.”
Here are some other ideas that were first brought to you by a small number of wild-eyed “activists”:
- Abolition
- Civil rights
- Gay people are people
- The 5 day work week
- The minimum wage
“People in Latin America don’t use it.”
Sure, I agree. But that misses the point. It's not like I plan to call my centenarian grandmother to be like “ABUELITA EVITA ESCUCHAME NO ERES LATINA NI HISPANA NI LATINOAMERICANA ERES LATINEX OKAY?? LAAA-TIII-NEX"
The whole point of trying to find the right word to describe people of Latin American descent in this country is that they are more than just “people of Latin American descent.”
We are something new, something separate and not beholden to where we are "from."
If you think I’m full of it, google the origins of salsa music. Or ask your friend if, when they go back to Mexico/El Salvador/Peru etc. people *there* consider them Mexican/El Salvadorian/Peruvian, etc. I love my primos but I could care less what they think I should call myself.
If you don’t want to use it to describe yourself, no problem. If it sounds weird, I hear you. It is different. And it is particularly jarring when your first see it in some corporate America pablum. It's got a real "Jeff Bezos wants to tell you Black Lives Matter" vibe.
But I think that the heart of “Latinx” is in the right place. And whether it is that word or another we choose to adopt (Latine?), I doubt we’ll be using “Latino” or “Hispanic” 50 years from now. It'll sound like the people who call me "Spanish" after I tell them I'm from Peru.
NB. My Abuelita Evita is most definitely not alive. But she lived to 98, okay? And she didn't trust banks, and thought I was literally incapable of wrong, and so I think it is okay right
NB2. I realize that some people do envision Latinx as a Pan-American self-identifier. I am not one of them.
1/ Miles Taylor is no resistance hero. He was an active facilitator of the separations of thousands of boys and girls from their parents who is now whitewashing his own reputation. nytimes.com/2020/10/28/us/…
2/ Miles Taylor propagated the myth that the moms and dads arriving at the border were not in fact parents.
Don't take my word for it. Here's the stories he solicited for Secretary Nielsen to use for this, and a link to his email soliciting them. documentcloud.org/documents/6881…
3/ When the full horror of family separations began to emerge, Miles Taylor did not denounce them. Instead, he sent Kirstjen Nielsen talking points to argue that the administration was actually *protecting* children.
2/ Here in April 2018 is Miles Taylor asking Katie Waldman (now Miller) for cases to help Secretary Nielsen propagate the fiction that the families showing up at the border were actually fake.
3/ Here’s her reply. Note the language around “family units” and “Honduran male adults.”
The Feldman op-ed reminds me of a warning I give my law students.
I start by admitting that I hated law school. If the student is struggling, I’ll add that I once told a friend that if I ever try to teach law school, “please shoot me in the head.” There was an extra word there.
I tell them that I hated law school because it rewards, hand over fist, a very specific kind of intelligence: The ability to answer, on-the-fly and on-the-spot, to an abstract hypothetical that’s divorced from reality — without reference to notes or the ability to reflect.
This isn’t just cold-calling or Socratic method. It is also exams. The highest compliment you can pay someone in law schools is “Oh my God, they are so smart” — with the “smart” referring to that intelligence.
You cannot use the sentence “elections have consequences” in a post-2016 op-ed supporting a SCOTUS nominee and spend all of one sentence discussing Merrick Garland.
For a constitutional scholar to fail to appreciate that we’re in the middle of a republic-defining authoritarian power grab - Trump this very week said he would not accept the results of this election! - to blithely support your friend for the highest court in the land is bizarre
The essence of the op-ed is “my friend is very very smart, and therefore deserves to be on the court.”
As Bharat notes, this is endemic of a much broader problem in elite academia where raw intellect is more important than any other attribute.