What does "latinx" mean? From what i understand latino/a is someone that descends from latin america. I could be completley wrong though. Personally im hispanic and people often refer to me as latino which o just ignore most of the time but i keep seeing people sai latinx and i have no idea what that means
I’ll break this down in a couple parts. Latinx vs Latino/a is a gender neutral and inclusive version of the otherwise gendered conjugation of the word. Latinx meant to be inclusive of whatever a person identifies as. I do it to lessen stigma and make it more of a regular thing. I’m a cisgendered male, who identifies as such. In English vs Spanish, gender isn’t assumed and placed on words aside from specific words about gender, while in Spanish, even the way you conjugate verbs assigns gender and can further stereotypes and assumptions about someone’s gender without you taking the time to ask them what their preference is.
Now, Latinx refers to geography. Coming from Latin America which includes everything south of the United States including the Caribbean.
Hispanic refers to language, coming from a country who’s primary language is Spanish.
This is a distinction because not every Latin American country speaks Spanish. Just look at Brazil! They speak Portuguese so are therefor Latinx and NOT Hispanic. Conversely, people from Spain, are Hispanic, and not Latinx.
They’ve been used interchangeably by many, even though they don’t mean the same thing.
Well, it matters quite a lot when you are attempting to keep cultures alive, and decolonizing practices and histories. Defining yourself by your language instead of your history is a colonial narrative. The reason Spanish is so prevalent in Latin America is because Spanish Conquistadors, and religious missionaries forced the language and religion onto the people who were already there.
Spanish is spoken in some places because the original languages were systematically destroyed along with the native customs, traditions, and histories. What couldn’t be bent to fit into Catholicism, was demonized and made evil. What could be, over time has become something new, because it was forced through a Spanish-Catholic lens.
So, while referring to yourself as Hispanic may technically be accurate if you come from a country who speaks Spanish, you’re defining yourself by the language rather than the history and geography of where you come from. Referring to yourself as Latinx on the other hand has greatly increased in prevalence recently because of reclamation of our practices and history.
On a personal note, I do have “Spanish” heritage, but only technically. My family is Basque and Mexican, the Basque people have been subjected to many things by the Spanish people and government that has been extremely detrimental to them. Same thing to the native Mexicans and indigenous people who lived there. Both of my ancestral languages from these cultures are dying languages Nahuatl and Basque. I choose to refer to myself as Latinx because I connect to my family and the land they resided in until my grandparents immigrated to the United States. My abuala and abuelo weren’t Hispanic, they were Mexican. My great grandfather never went to Spain, he farmed in Mexico where he grew up, made a living and started a family.
To put this in terms for others, just because you speak a language doesn’t change who you are. Spanish and English are the major exceptions because the language carries the history of colonialism. Hispanic is the term that came from being colonized. Most other languages are referred to synonymously with their country of origin, but a whole term was created to other the indigenous people, and fit them into the “civilized” narrative of European society.
So, go ahead and refer to yourself as you see fit, but out of respect for the ancestors that didn’t have a choice, I refer to everyone who isn’t directly from Spain as Latinx who is of Latin American descent unless they tell me they have a different preference.
