Recently, you may have seen the word “Latinx” cropping up in articles and editorials to designate Hispanics.. The origins of the word are murky, but it appears that white liberal elites have christened Hispanics with the word that may have denoted LGBTQ or feminist Hispanics at one time.
Elizabeth Warren is the most shameful panderer using the term.
When I become president, Latinx families will have a champion in the White House. #LatinxHeritageMonth pic.twitter.com/yIcoBHGjMV
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 15, 2019
Regardless of where the word comes from or who is using it, Hispanics themselves have decisively rejected the term.
A group of pollsters at the progressive ThinkNow Research conducted a national survey of Latinos to discover Hispanic sentiment toward the term “Latinx.” Respondents were presented with seven of the most popular terms used to describe their particular demographic and were asked, “Which of these names do you prefer to describe your ethnicity?” The terms included Hispanic, Latino/Latina, Chicano/Chicana, Latinx, American, my country of origin, (i.e. Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, etc.), and my country of origin + American (i.e. Cuban-American, Mexican-American, etc.). The poll’s 508-person sample size demographically represented census data, including a margin of error of ± 5 percent.
Ninety-eight percent of respondents indicated they prefer a term other than “Latinx” to denote their ethnicity, which left only 2 percent preferring Latinx, making it the least-preferred term for Hispanic people among Hispanics themselves.
Even the young are turning up their noses at the made-up word:
Despite speculation that the “Latinx” label appeals to women and young people, survey results indicated only 3 percent of respondents ages 18 to 34 prefer the term, with zero support among respondents over 50 years old. Hispanic women responded slightly more favorably than men, with 3 percent and 1 percent preference, respectively. In other words, 99 percent of Hispanic men and 97 percent of women, Millennials, and Gen Zers prefer a word other than “Latinx” to describe their ethnicity. Most respondents preferred the term “Hispanic,” with “Latino/Latina” being the second-most preferred indentifier.
You shouldn’t be surprised at this effort to alter the English language. Destroying meaning and the context for words has been a dream of the left for decades. It has allowed them to capture language, abuse it, and then fashion it into a political weapon. Meaning becomes what they say it is. Context becomes irrelevant because they create the context in which your words are spoken.
Can you really create a word out of whole cloth and then force its usage on the public? The arbiters of vocabulary — Webster’s dictionary — generally accepts several hundred new words every year. On the other hand, they remove several dozen words that have fallen out of usage. While it may be hip and popular today to use the word “Latinx” to describe Hispanic people, that poll would suggest it’s headed for oblivion.
Addendum:
While the words Latino and Latina are imported from the Spanish language, “Latinx” originated in America and is being imposed on the English language by Americans.
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