Not to humblebrag but I’m not online enough to know the details of the likely struggle sessions that have already occurred relating to this (Hexbear or elsewhere)
I’m reading Racial Formation in the United States, and it makes frequent use of latin@. But to me it just seems really awkward/forced.
Just use latine? Or, if one insists on using a combo letter, maybe at least something like the Swedish å? Or instead of trying to change the language, just divorce any correlation between human gender and word gender by selecting either latino or latina to refer to all people.
I only have a basic American level ability to speak Spanish so if there are Spanish speakers here with better insight, lemme hear the roasts
I understand this is a question that involves an american community, but here in Brazil it’s generally regarded as ridiculous because it is linguistically awkward and feels like a cultural import from the USA. Latine being no better than Latinx.
That may be relevant for first generation immigrants because the male form of words is perceived as both generic and masculine, it is the female form of words which is regarded as special. When you say Eles (they, masculine) it can be a group of men, but it is generally impersonal and without character. When you say Elas (they, feminine) it is always a group of women, and carries special meaning therefore. A group of parents vs a group of mothers, for an example.
I have to say that english could just call latin americans the latin community. It’s gender neutral and a word in current use. Nobody from the classical region of Latium is gonna resurrect and be miffed about it and I’m positive there won’t be any confusion with 5th generation italian families from New York.
Edit: to be clear, I’m not just talking about people online with transvestigation syndrome. For an example, when Dilma Rouseff was elected president of Brazil the Worker’s Party made a big deal of calling her Presidenta. It is grammatically sound, as it follows the rule for Master (Mestre/Mestra), but it’s also correct to just call her Presidente. The right wing made a big deal of refusing to use the gendered form because politics.
Now, for most normies it just sounded weird, not just because it’s a new word but almost like a mocking thing to call the president. Latine and Latinx go beyond that. It will take a lot of work and outright imposition for those terms to filter down from academia and corporate authority, and it still might not in the end.
Another thing that comes up to me right now is that going out of your way to say LatinOH! and LatinAH! comes across as a way to create and experience that migrant identity in an anglophone country. Latinos in the US are, frankly, basically Americans in most ways that count. Especially the second gen ones. But being LatinOH! rather than Latinx is one way of living the fact that your parents and grandparents are from Guatemala.
That may have cultural value in itself and might respond to some resistance you’ll see.
I never understood what the problem with Latin American is. It’s gender neutral and accurately describes a person’s origin. I consider myself Latin American, and I don’t know any other Brazilians who would object to being called that, unless they have some very online chip on their shoulder.
Well, it’s not really about us. It’s about USians, and in the US the community brand that won out is ‘Latino’. But yeah, if you want to make that gender neutral I can’t see what’s wrong with Latin People or Folk, as opposed to Latinx Folk or People.
Latin American as a term was tied to the language of academia and diplomacy. It started as a French geopolitical delusion, continued onwards as a sticking point in hispanic literature, and only came to really include Brazil in the early 1900s due to American geopolitical reality. Since then it described foreign peoples, not a community within the United States. I’d wager that’s why it didn’t catch: a black person in the US can fill a form referring to themselves as African American - but the mexican person won’t find any forms with Latin American as a matter of historical circumstance.
That makes sense!