LatinX: A Label Without a Cause

LatinX: A Label Without a Cause

In Honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, 9/15 to 10/15

Everything evolves. Just two days ago, McDonald’s announced that it’ll be using an A.I. company to help automate its drive-thru restaurants. We will soon be able to have our cup of coffee or Big Mac faster and without attitude. Language also evolves. In the last six months, more than 1,400 new words were added to the Oxford English Dictionary. Latinx may have been one of them, since, for the last few years, its use has continued to spread, in part, because many don’t want to offend, don’t know one term from another, or are well-intentioned but misguided.

I’m old-fashioned but quite flexible, able to learn and adjust as needed. But today, I describe myself as an American of Hispanic descent – or Latino. These labels are something that most people understand.

The label “Latinx” is not easy to understand or to read - it’s not intuitive. It’s an attempt to be inclusive, eliminating the need for the male and female genders, even though “Latinos” explicitly means all people of Hispanic descent and all genders. Latinx fails, as it makes no sense, linguistically. Its attempt to be inclusive wasn’t needed, it doesn’t advance the efforts to achieve progress for Latinos, and it serves as a distraction from our most pressing and real issues. The term Latinx doesn’t help mitigate the negative stereotypes that are tossed carelessly around about Latinos either. If a name change were needed, I’d be fully behind it. But there’s no such need.

It’s a label without a cause.

What’s next: Burritx, Amigx, Ni?x, or dare I say, Arroyx?

We’ve changed labels to describe who we are as a people several times (see background after the article’s conclusion below) without making a difference in the way we’re perceived or leveraged. What we need is real inclusion of Latinos in corporate America, in entrepreneurship, in government (federal, state, local), in education, in foundations, and in films. Consider these abysmal numbers:

1. Latinos held just 3% of seats in the boardroom on the Fortune 500 companies.
2. 70%, or nearly 350 companies of the Fortune 500, did not have a Latino on their board.
3. Only 2%, or 10 Fortune 500 CEOs, are Latinos.
4. 133 Latinos held 171 board seats in the Fortune 500.
5. More than 50% of the Fortune 500 companies do not have Latinos in their senior management ranks.
6. Latinos represented only 3% of lead or co-lead roles in top-performing movies during the last 12 years. Producers, directors and casting executives fared badly, too.
7. Latinos represent about 8% on both Houses of Congress.

Latinos represent nearly 18% of the U.S. population and have a purchasing power of more than $1 trillion, which is larger than 180 countries (of the 195 countries in the world, only 15 have more), yet we remain underrepresented in just about every category of real power and influence in the U.S. That’s where our focus must be.

We need organizations like the Latino Donor Collaborative (LDC) and L’ATTITUDE.

LDC is dedicated to reshaping the perception of Latinos as part of the American social mainstream. The LDC does this by extending outreach to influential people in media, advertising, politics, corporate America, and civil society, and confronting stereotypes with data that brings understanding and appreciation of the actual roles being played by Latinos in society, politics, and commerce.

L’ATTITUDE is a business organization focused on helping corporate America understand and leverage The New Mainstream Economy and the Latinos who are driving it. I like that it’s changing the narrative of who we, Latinos, are and the robust contributions we are making.

There are others too, but too many to mention, among them: The Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility, UNIDOS US, ALPFA, NALEO, Prospanica, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, the National Hispanic Medial Association, and the Hispanic Bar Association – all supporting the Latino community’s advancement within the U.S., for the benefit of all.

As an analogy, a few days ago (9/3), Forbes published a list of the 100 Most Innovative Leaders in the U.S. Of the 100 leaders, there is one (1) woman on the list. Are we going to debate whether ‘woman’ is the right term (as opposed to ‘female’)? Or are we going to ask Jeff Dyer, Nathan Furr and Mike Hendron, the authors, why there are 99 men listed, virtually excluding the incredibly powerful women in business?

If we can stay focused on what’s important, like LDC and L’ATTITUDE and the other outstanding organizations mentioned above, we will improve our future in society, both in politics and in commerce, not just for Latinos, but for all, embracing a more inclusive and powerful country.

Our cause is just. With perseverance and focus we will achieve our goals. Let’s not get distracted.

Background:

The ancestry of the U.S. Latino population is linked to the following regions, in alphabetical order: Central America, Greater Antilles, Mexico, South America and Spain. Collectively, these represent 22 Spanish-speaking countries. In the U.S., this group comprises more than 55 million individuals, outnumbering Canadians in Canada and twice the population in Australia. If the U.S. Latino population represented a country, it would make up the second-largest Latino "nation" in the world, second only to Mexico.

U.S. Latinos share many traits, including similar experiences, values and viewpoints that generally unite them. They often - but not always - speak Spanish and carry a Spanish surname. Some are recent immigrants; many more are not and have lived in the U.S. for generations. While sharing a similar set of values in the U.S., each Spanish-speaking country represented by U.S. Latinos has a different culture, rooted in rich traditions, art, eclectic music, scrumptious cuisines and major holidays. While Latinos are not classified as a race, they include biracial and multiracial individuals, resulting from the African influence related to slave trade throughout the Caribbean and parts of South America and from the union of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and the Europeans (Mestizos). Latinos represent every hair and skin color. There isn't one "look" that identifies all Latinos.

Defining some of the most common terms:

Latino -- An individual with roots that go back to any of the Spanish-speaking countries. Be aware that the term "Latino" may be used for a man or for a man and woman. Latina is used for women (avoid saying "Latina women," as it is redundant). The term "Latino" began to be broadly used in the late 1980s when a younger generation started using it to replace the term "Hispanic."

Hispanic -- A term that was originated by the Census Bureau in the 1960s. It was used to capture all the people whose backgrounds included any of the Spanish-speaking countries. The term is gender neutral.

Mexican American -- An American citizen of Mexican descent. This term gained popularity in 1980s.

Spanish -- The language of Spain and the language spoken in most of Latin America, except for Brazil, where Portuguese is the main language, and Guyana and Belize, where English is spoken.

Latin -- The official and ancient language of the people of the Roman Empire. It is a term that is generally not used to refer to someone who is Latino.

Chicano -- An American citizen of Mexican descent who has a strong sense of Mexican-American ethnic identity. This term was regularly used in the 1960s, mostly in the Southwest, and by the 1970s it was the preferred term used to refer to Mexican Americans. It is also important to note that there are regional terms used across the country, such as Tejanos in Texas or Hispanos in New Mexico.