Arkansas bans term ‘Latinx’: What does it mean? Why is it so divisive?

Arkansas’ new Republican governor Sarah Huckabee has banned the term ‘Latinx’. Huckabee, a former spokesperson for ex-president Donald Trump, banned the gender-neutral term on official documents on her first day in office. The executive order stated, “It is the policy of the Governor’s administration to prohibit the use of culturally insensitive words for official state government business.” But what is Latinx? And why is Huckabee banning it? Let’s take a closer look: What is ‘Latinx’? ‘Latinx’ is a term for persons of Latin-American origin or Hispanic descent. It was added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary in 2018.

The term is a gender-neutral or non-binary alternative for Latino and Latina.

Joseph M Pierce, assistant professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature at Stony Brook University, told Oprahdaily, the x at the end of the term does not refer to a gender but is meant to ‘disrupt the romance language’s grammatical binary.’ Pierce pegs the origins of the terms in the mid-2000s “in activist circles primarily in the US as an expansion of earlier gender-inclusive variations such as Latino/a (with the slash) and Latin@ (with the “at” sign). But David Bowles, a writer, translator, and professor at the University of Texas Río Grande Valley in Edinburg, Texas, puts the genesis of the term back even further. “Radical feminists in the ’90s—and perhaps as early as the ’70s—would literally “x” out the “o” at the end of words that were meant to exclude women and non-binary folk all together,” Bowles explained. “The word “Latinx” is ultimately a “non-gendered, non-binary, inclusive way of pushing back against the default masculine in Spanish,” adds Bowles. Why is it so controversial? For one, the people it is meant to represent don’t seem too eager to adopt it. A 2020 Pew Research poll showing that despite nearly a quarter of Latinos having heard of the term, just three per cent actually use it. Among the most likely to use the term? Young Hispanic women – 14 per cent of whom use it, as per the poll. The most not likely to use the term? Hispanic men aged 18-24 with just one per cent of them using the term. A 2021 Gallup poll put the favourability of Latinx at just four per cent.

But some claim the data doesn’t show the full picture.

Maia Gil’Adí, a College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of English, told BU this isn’t necessarily so. “With the younger generations—with the kids that I teach—I would think that they’re much more comfortable using the term Latinx,” Gil’Adí said. The term has also become a culture war divide. While LGBTQ and progressive Democratic politicians are happy to use the term, the California Latino Caucus is yet to sanction its use, as per the Sacramento Bee. Sanders’ attempt at banishing the term on official documents is a typical culture war play – seeking to take minority votes away from Democrats. “She’s calling out a culture war with those very residents of her state that are central to its economic future,” Sonja Diaz, director of the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute, told Sacramento Bee. Ed Morales, author of the book Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture agreed. “It is something that seems to be tied to things that they object to, which is really anything that prioritizes marginalized people and marginalized points of view,” Morales told NBC. Tabitha Bonilla, an associate professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University, added, “That sets the tone for the type of governance that you want to enact, of what you think is the priority, and the types of decision-making you’ll do at an office.” Hispanic Interestingly, it was rICHARD Nixon who first went after the ‘Hispanic vote’ and his administration that popularised the term ‘Hispanic’. As Cristina Mora, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, explained to NPR, Nixon in 1972 deployed “amigo buses” seeking votes in the Southwest, Northeast and Florida. _A_s per BU Today, the term was birthed into existence after a Census Bureau committee appointed by Nixon decided to club together different peoples from Latin America. Mora explained that the push was made by the Census director calling Latino advocacy groups in Washington and Spanish language media. A company, later known as Univision, brought on performers from Latin America pushing the term on the Census form. The rest, as they say, is cultural history. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News, India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.