{"id":21992,"date":"2022-09-13T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-13T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecentercv1.wpengine.com\/?p=21992"},"modified":"2022-09-12T15:56:50","modified_gmt":"2022-09-12T22:56:50","slug":"latinx-latine-how-to-be-inclusive-in-spanish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/es\/blog\/latinx-latine-how-to-be-inclusive-in-spanish\/","title":{"rendered":"Latinx & Latine: How To be Inclusive In Spanish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Latinx? Latine? Latino\/a? Latin@? How do we refer to a non-binary individual of Latin American descent or to the Latin American community as a whole while being inclusive to all gender identities within the community? After all, languages can be tricky, especially a foreign or second language. Often we find it difficult to find just the right word in our own native language, let alone a language in which we don\u2019t feel as confident. Still, words are important, especially words that categorize groups of people. So, as \u201cHispanic Heritage Month<\/a>\u201d gets underway here in the U.S., let\u2019s demystify some Spanish terms so as to be as inclusive as can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Spanish Is a Gendered Language<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Unlike English, Spanish (and all languages originating from the Latin of Ancient Rome) is a gendered language. Everything has to either be masculine<\/em> o feminine<\/em>. Usually, the orthographic spelling of the word determines a thing\u2019s gender. That\u2019s why a chair (silla<\/em>) is feminine and a phone (tel\u00e9fono<\/em>) is masculine despite both of them technically being genderless, inanimate objects. The Spanish language simply forces a speaker to gender all things. However, people are not things, and people are also not limited to a dichotomy of only two genders.<\/mark> Thus, in a language that has historically only recognized \u201cmale\u201d and \u201cfemale,\u201d inventiveness occurred to help Spanish-speaking folks of Latin American descent communicate beyond the binary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of us are familiar with the masculine word \u201cLatino\u201d and feminine word \u201cLatina\u201d to respectively refer to males and females of Latin American descent, but as the times became more inclusive, so, too, did the Spanish language. One of the first adaptation was for folks to start using \u201cLatino\/a\u201d and sometimes \u201cLatin@\u201d to include both the masculine \u201co\u201d and the feminine \u201ca.\u201d While this was an improvement in recognizing women (since, in traditional Spanish, a group of people have to be referred to in masculine terms if even only one male is in a group of all females), it still was not fully inclusive of people whose gender identity were beyond just \u201cmale\u201d or \u201cfemale\u201d. Enter \u201cLatinx\u201d (LAT-in-ex \/ la-TEEN-ex) and \u201cLatine\u201d (LAT-in-eh \/ la-TEEN-eh). By replacing the \u201co\u201d and \u201ca\u201d with a gender-neutral \u201cx\u201d or \u201ce,\u201d non-binary, genderqueer, and all other folks could be acknowledged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

What About Hispanic<\/em> o Chicano<\/em>?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Nowadays, the word \u201cHispanic\u201d is often used interchangeably with \u201cLatinx\u201d, but Hispanic means something very different. Though it does add more specificity, it is also more exclusionary. \u201cHispanic\u201d has its roots in denoting Spain\u2019s former colonies in the Americas. Aside from the colonialism inherent in the term, it also only refers to Latin American folks who descend from Spanish-speaking populations, leaving out people from Brazil, Belize, and many islands of the Caribbean. \u201cLatinx,\u201d on the other hand, refers to anyone descended from Latin America. Essentially, Hispanic is a linguistic determiner, while Latinx is more of an ethnic and cultural determiner.<\/mark>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChicano,\u201d (Chicana, Chicanx, etc.) is an even more specific and nuanced term that gained momentum in the 1960s as an alterative to the colonial-tinged \u201cHispanic\u201d and to the very general \u201cLatino\/a\/x\u201d. The origins of the word \u201cChicano\u201d are not fully agreed upon by linguistic historians, but today it denotes a person of Mexican descent who was born in the United States. Be warned, though, as not all Mexican-Americans enjoy being called a Chicano\/a\/x. Similar to the word \u201cqueer,\u201d certain individuals in the community regard the word as a slur rather than a word of empowerment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Drawing<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

So, Is It Latinx or Latine?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Really, it all depends on personal preference. Both Latinx and Latine are interchangeable and mean the same: a person of Latin American descent regardless of their gender or sexual identity.<\/mark> Latinx is generally the more popular and well-known of the two simply because it\u2019s cross-culturally easier for non-Spanish-speakers to understand.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about it this way. Math is a universal language, and like in algebra, the \u201cx\u201d in Latinx stands in for something that is \u201cunknown,\u201d and could be used for any gender identity. So, when an English speaker sees an \u201cx\u201d at the end of \u201cLatin,\u201d the significance of the word is readily understood. However, the use of \u201ce\u201d as a gender-neutral alternative to \u201co\u201d and \u201ca\u201d only readily makes sense in Spanish and is a bigger linguistic leap than using an \u201cx\u201d. For the sake of ease and clarity with folks who don\u2019t speak Spanish, \u201cLatinx\u201d is more frequently used. Still, Latine is gaining popularity among Spanish-speakers, particularly among younger generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though \u201cLatinx\u201d and \u201cLatine\u201d might not be \u201ctraditional\u201d Spanish, they were created with inclusivity in mind as a way to be able to speak beyond the binary of male\/female and ensure that all peoples of Latin American heritage are represented. Not everyone may prefer \u201cLatinx,\u201d but when in doubt, don\u2019t be ashamed to ask. Just by asking, it shows you are being considerate and showing care in the identity of others\u2026 identities as diverse as the Latinx community everywhere.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Latinx? Latine? Latino\/a? Latin@? How do we refer to a non-binary individual of Latin American descent or to the Latin American community as a whole while being inclusive to all gender identities within the community? After all, languages can be tricky, especially a foreign or second language. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":21993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-off-topic-informational"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecentercv.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}