Latino organization drops ‘Latinx’ from official communication
Are you a Latina? A Latino? Or a Latinx? If the latter, know that you are in a minority. And that most Latinos will rather accept being called Hispanics than Latinx. So why bother?
Domingo García, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organization, has instructed staff and board members to drop the word “Latinx” from the group’s official communications.
García sent the directive out in an emai addressed to Sindy Benavides, the league’s CEO; David Cruz, its communications director; and the LULAC board. “Let’s stop using Latinx in all official communications,” García said, adding that it’s “very unliked” by almost all Latinos.
The email included a link to a Miami Herald editorial with the headline: “The ‘Latinx community’ doesn’t want to be called ‘Latinx.’ Just drop it, progressives.” “The reality is there is very little to no support for its use and it’s sort of seen as something used inside the Beltway or in Ivy League tower settings, while LULAC always rep Jose and María on Main Street in the barrio and we need to make sure we talk to them the way they talk to each other,” García said in a phone interview with NBC News.
“I don’t know of any abuelita (grandmother) that calls her granddaughter, ‘Hey you Latinx, I’m going to throw you the chancla (flip-flop).’ It just doesn’t happen,” he said.
New poll finds only 2 percent of U.S. Hispanics use term ‘Latinx.’ LULAC does not oppose people and groups that self-identify with Latinx, Mexican American, Latino or other terms, Garcia said. But as a national civil rights organization trying to appeal to as many […]
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