• ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Somewhat tangential, but my sister-in-law insists that people use “latinx” whenever she hears someone say latino or latina. This despite the fact that latinos overwhelmingly prefer the terms “latino” or “hispanic” to describe themselves; in fact most have never even heard the term latinx and most of those who have are offended by that, not by latino or hispanic. I like pointing out to my (very white) sister-in-law that there is nothing more white than telling other ethnicities what they should or should not be called.

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Latino/a individuals have overwhelmingly said “No” to Latinx.

      I haven’t had many latina friends, but the ones I have had basically said a slur would actually be less offensive than latinx, and yeah, white people dictating what other cultures can and can’t do… kinda racist…

      • SybilVane@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        Latine! It has the added benefit of being pronounceable in Spanish, unlike latinx.

        • primrosepathspeedrun@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          to be fair I don’t know how to pronounce the x in english either.

          but that is the one I’ve heard most often. edit: e not x, most often

      • Liz@midwest.social
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        3 months ago

        The male form doubles as gender neutral. Some people have tried to start using -e ending, but I’m pretty sure basically no one actually uses it.

        Edit: Gotta love the dualing anecdote replies.

        • primrosepathspeedrun@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          e ending is what I’ve seen from gender non conforming spanish-as-first-language speakers most often. I’m gonna go with it until it starts being overwhelmed with something else, languages being living things and them being the people who I see as having any right to determine this bit.

        • P4ulin_Kbana
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          3 months ago

          As someone who is native of a romance language, I would prefer using the male form. It doesn’t feels 100%, but it’s worth it.

      • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        They can call themselves latinx and I would call them that as well, if that’s what they choose. The issue is with people (like my sister-in-law) insisting that everybody hispanic should be called latinx.

        • primrosepathspeedrun@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          im just saying, those are the only people who I listen to on this discourse and I will parrot whatever they say, because my tounge absolutely defiles that language every time I try to speak it, and don’t think straight cis people have a right to an opinion here, regardless of their language preference.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      most of those who have are offended by that

      I’ve never heard of anyone having strong feelings, one way or the other, outside of the Internet.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Guessing you’re being downvoted because Latino != Spanish just like American != British. “Spanish descent” is applicable to some, but Latino backgrounds are as diverse as American or Canadian backgrounds. It doesn’t refer to a race or culture but to people who identify with the Latin American region (Central and South American and parts of the Caribbean).

        This is a TIL for me btw, as I originally was just going to respond that it includes Portugese but then looked up more information about “Latino” because I realized my idea of it was very general and wasn’t sure if those with Aztec descent, for example, would be considered “Latino”. The answer is yes, along with many descendent from areas all over the world, in case the first paragraph didn’t make that clear.

        • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          People just don’t know how many Latino people refer to themselves as Spanish. Especially in urban areas and traveling workers.

    • yetiftw@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      it’s about the minority that don’t feel as though latino/a doesn’t describe them. it’s not for the majority favored by the status quo

        • P4ulin_Kbana
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          3 months ago

          “when you try to please everyone, you please nobody”

        • yetiftw@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          displease the majority to give visibility to the minority. no one is hurt when latinx is used, but the people latinx additionally represents face violence every day

          • Commiunism@lemmy.wtf
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            3 months ago

            It’s not as simple as pronouns in the English language when it comes to ‘latinx’. The word is not that easy to pronounce to someone who knows Spanish but doesn’t know English all that well, which are the people this word is supposed to include. It’s quite literally imposing English language norms on the Spanish language which can be considered offensive in itself.

            Besides, personal opinion but it sounds stupid. If there’s a need to call someone from Latin America a gender neutral term, latine is a much better alternative - it’s more accepted within Spanish speaking communities, -e is already found in non-gendered names within Spanish language and just generally doesn’t sound like something Musk would have written.

            • yetiftw@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              well the term was created by a latinx individual so that’s a bit of a moot point. I do agree that latine makes more sense but what do I know

              • Antmz22@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                Source?

                Even if that’s the case, it’s almost exclusively an United States American or English speaking phenomenon, so especially if that person was a US American / English speaker they don’t speak for the entire Latino community.

                From Pew Research.

                the U.S. born are more likely than the foreign born to have heard the term (32% vs. 16%), and Hispanics who are predominantly English speakers or bilingual are more likely than those who mainly speak Spanish to say the same (29% for both vs. 7%).

                A majority (61%) say they prefer Hispanic to describe the Hispanic or Latino population in the U.S., and 29% say they prefer Latino. Meanwhile, just 4% say they prefer Latinx to describe the Hispanic or Latino population.

              • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                3 months ago

                yeah i feel like maybe we should probably just focus on the brunt of the violence (where the brunt of the victims are going to be) instead of like, theorizing words we can use to refer to things that already have words to refer to them in a marginally more PC(is this even the right term for this?) way?