New poll finds that Latinos are tired of being called 'Latinx'

A Democratic Party attempt to reach Latino voters in a more gender-neutral way through the use of the term “Latinx” has apparently backfired, according to Politico.

According to a new poll from Bendixen & Amandi International, a Democratic firm specializing in Latino outreach, a mere 2 percent of those polled refer to themselves as Latinx, while 68 percent call themselves “Hispanic” and 21 percent favored “Latino” or “Latina.”

Furthermore, the survey found that 40 percent of those polled said Latinx bothers or offends them while 30 percent said they would be less likely to support a politician or organization that uses the term.

For Democrats like Elizabeth Warren, Julián Castro and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who have adopted and regularly use the term to reach out to Hispanic voters – this comes as a hard pill to swallow. 

“The numbers suggest that using Latinx is a violation of the political Hippocratic Oath, which is to first do no electoral harm,” said Amandi, whose firm helped the Obama administration win the Hispanic vote in 2008 and 2012. “Why are we using a word that is preferred by only 2 percent, but offends as many as 40 percent of those voters we want to win?”

According to Google trend data, “Latinx” came onto the scene in October of 2014 and has since been widely popularized by the liberal media and academics. However, the term is virtually nonexistent in the Spanish speaking world, where progressives prefer to add “e” or “@” to the end of gendered words.

As Politico notes, “Spanish is a gendered language, with nouns typically ending in “A” for the feminine and “O” for masculine words. Masculine nouns are typically prefaced with “el” or “un,” while feminine nouns are used with articles, like “la” or “una.” When referring to a group of mixed-gender people, the language defaults to the masculine.”

But proponents of gender inclusive reforms to Spanish argue that masculine words should not be the default when talking about a mixed-gender group.

In 2018, the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE,) the institution charged with ensuring the stability of the Spanish language, rejected the use of “x” and “e” as gender-neutral alternatives.

According to a 2020 Tweet by RAE, “The use of the letter "x" to mark gender inclusivity is alien to the morphology of Spanish, as well as unnecessary (and unpronounceable), since the grammatical masculine already fulfills this function.”

#RAEconsultas El uso de la letra «x» como supuesta marca de género inclusivo es ajeno a la morfología del español, además de innecesario (e impronunciable), pues el masculino gramatical ya cumple esa función como término no marcado de la oposición de gén.

— RAE (@RAEinforma) February 26, 2020

Dario Villanueva, RAE’s director, added to the debate by saying, “The problem is we’re confusing grammar with machismo.”

Virginia Republican Attorney General-elect Jason Miyares — who is of Cuban descent— also believes the term is problematic.

“By insisting on using the incorrect term Latinx, progressives are engaging in a type of cultural Marxism, a recast of societal norms,” he told Politico. “Latinos don't use the term — only upper-educated white liberals who hardly interact with the Latino community. I believe that every time they use the term Latinx, they lose another Latino vote.”

Similarly, Joaquin Blaya, one of the founders of the Spanish-language news channel Univision, said he and his colleagues built the network around the use of the words Latino and Hispanic because it helped unite Spanish speakers from across Latin America.

When asked about his objection to the term Latinx, Blaya explained that it’s “too weird. It’s dumb. It’s foreign. It’s not Spanish.”

“Democrats are helping Republicans make them look out of touch,” Blaya, a registered Democrat, continued. “We built a network around our Spanish language and we have a shared culture around it. Why are we trying to change this? It’s offensive to a lot of people.”