Wokespeak Fail: Only 3% of Voters Use 'Latinx' to Refer to Hispanics, And That's Not the Worst Part
One of the most pressing questions surrounding the woke neologism “Latinx” is how you say it: “La-tinks” or “Latin-x?”
Both are wrong, surprisingly. According to a new poll, the correct answer is, you don’t say it — not if you’re the vast majority of people, and particularly not if you’re Hispanic.
In a new survey, only 3 percent of American voters said that they used the term “Latinx” to refer to Hispanics. As for Hispanics included in the poll, not a single one used the term to refer to themselves.
Unsurprisingly, however, the gender-neutral term has been constantly pushed by leftists and academics looking to redefine language. Here at The Western Journal, we’ll continue to fight the Orwellian newspeak being pushed on the general public by a small group of activists. You can help our fight by subscribing.
The results of the Echelon Insights survey were first reported by The Daily Wire on Thursday.
In the poll, conducted Jan. 21-23, 1,029 registered voters were asked, “When it comes to describing people who are of Spanish-speaking heritage of some kind, which of the following terms do you think is most appropriate to use?”
“Hispanic” came in first, with 42 percent of total respondents preferring it, including 55 percent of Hispanics.
“By their own nationality” was second with 26 percent and “Latino or Latina” third with 15 percent.
“Latinx,” despite a significant push by the left to use the term, came in at 3 percent among all voters and — say it in your best Dean Wormer voice — zero-point-zero percent among Hispanics.
The term was most popularly used among (and now here’s another shocker) white people — although even the fair-trade-almond-milk-latte crowd weren’t too keen on it, with a total of 4 percent preferring it.
The results are similar to a 2019 Pew Research poll which found that 23 percent of U.S. Hispanic adults had heard of the term but that only 3 percent used it — despite the fact, as Pew Research noted, the word “has emerged as an alternative that is used by some news and entertainment outlets, corporations, local governments and universities to describe the nation’s Hispanic population.”
Another 2019 survey by liberal group ThinkNow found only 2 percent of Hispanics used the term.
So, why are we seeing this word being used by pundits and politicians so frequently? And what does it really mean? It depends on who you ask.
According to a 2017 NBC News article, Marc Hugo Lopez, director of Hispanic research at the Pew Research Center, said it was “a very unique American take on identity.”
“Latinx fits within our broader history in the U.S. of using various terms to describe our identity,” Lopez said. “It is pan-ethnic like Hispanic, and political in a sense like Chicano.”
Robyn Moreno, the editorial director of Latina Magazine, said use of the term was about a shift to non-binary language.
“If people don’t identify on the gender binary, why not include them?” Moreno told NBC News. “This is another term which moves the identity conversation forward. It promotes fairness and inclusivity, which I think is a good thing. It is not about taking away identity; it is about giving more identity to more people.”
Meanwhile, David Bowles of the University of Texas Río Grande Valley told Oprah Magazine for a September 2021 article that “Latinx is focused on geography,” not race or language.
So there you have three answers — not necessarily mutually exclusive of one another, but not cohesive, either. We’ve certainly had long enough to come to some kind of agreement on what it means. Merriam-Webster traces the ethnic descriptor’s origins back to 2007, although the dictionary didn’t add it until 2018.
Perhaps we can agree on one thing “Latinx” is, however: an opportunity for very white, very liberal politicians to assure minority activist communities they’re suitably woke.
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren is the reigning champion here. She started conspicuously dropping the word during the last presidential cycle during a June 2019 Democratic debate. Referring to the economy: “It’s doing great for people who want to invest in private prisons, just not for the African-Americans and Latinx whose families are torn apart, whose lives are destroyed and whose communities are ruined.”
She didn’t stop there, either — because, when you’re someone who got caught maintaining a lie about fake Native-American heritage for decades, you’d better keep sucking up to the Oberlin College crowd like whoa:
At event on eve of Nevada caucuses, @ewarren jabs at a candidate not on the ballot tomorrow:
“When @MikeBloomberg was busy blaming the crash on African Americans and Latinx families who tried to buy homes, I was right here in Clark County holding hearings” pic.twitter.com/9fWlj1KXUt
— Alexander Tin (@Alexander_Tin) February 22, 2020
Yes, these are hard times. Yes, people are afraid. And the danger is real. Our very democracy hangs in the balance. But Latinx and Chicano history teaches us the power of fighting back. pic.twitter.com/wrIKGIPWI8
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) March 4, 2020
Even President Joe Biden tried his hand at Latinxing — and, as is wont to happen when Biden is involved, it became part of a racially charged gaffe. During a speech last June in which he was encouraging minority communities to get COVID-19 vaccinations, he said, “It’s awful hard, as well, to get Latinx vaccinated as well … Why? They’re worried that they’ll be vaccinated and deported.”
BIDEN: “It’s awful hard as well to get Latinx vaccinated… Why? They’re worried they’ll be vaccinated and deported.” pic.twitter.com/gt2mcuAGB2
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 24, 2021
The implication that Hispanic people were all here illegally and were therefore going to be deported if they got the jab didn’t go over swimmingly with a lot of people, including GOP Florida Rep. Carlos Giménez. However, in slamming Biden for the remarks, he pointed out the ugly truth about the word.
Never mind the racist undertones in implying all Latinos are undocumented, using the term “Latinx” is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
It’s insulting to our culture to try and restructure an entire language to fit your politics. Keep your wokeness out of our language. pic.twitter.com/xw0edPMp0A
— Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (@RepCarlos) June 27, 2021
“Never mind the racist undertones in implying all Latinos are undocumented, using the term ‘Latinx’ is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he wrote on Twitter.
“It’s insulting to our culture to try and restructure an entire language to fit your politics. Keep your wokeness out of our language.”
I doubt Giménez’s admonition stopped many of the people who have been pushing the term from using it. The good thing is that there aren’t many of them to stop — and almost none are actually Hispanic.
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