Talk:Latinx

Wiki Education assignment: Reading Latinx Literature

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation–supported course assignment, between 26 May 2025 and 16 July 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Joseph Borges (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Nayelimorocho (talk) 03:13, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

(The contribs link isn't working, here a fixed link: )

I have reverted these edits, as they did not cite any independent reliable sources for the claim that The term has also been used in contemporary memoir [sic] to affirm trans and gender-nonconforming Latin American identities and that this particular book exemplifies (i.e. is representative of) its usage in particular communities, leaving serious doubts on whether this particular use in a particular memoir should indeed considered relevant for this article, or whether the importance of this book for this article topic is rather the editor's personal opinion. (Use-mention distinction might also be worth a look.)

For what it's worth: The article about the book's author doesn't contain this claim either, in fact it doesn't even mention the term "Latinx" at all - nor do any of the reviews and other sources cited there in the section about the book (except a single interview with the author, where she uses it only a single time and doesn't discuss the term per se).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:38, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

It became a slur

Off-topic discussion (this talk page is for coordinating work on the Wikipedia article Latinx, not for general observations and debates about the term "Latinx") The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I have seen many people online, mainly english-spearks, who intentionally use this term to offend hispanic people, at this point this "attempt at inclusiveness" has became mostly a slur 2806:10A6:7:CBDC:B976:E293:78A4:CC3B (talk) 06:45, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

latinx didn't originate in English

Latinx didn't originate in English calling it a English neologism when it originated in Spanish seems dishonest. Especially to say it so early within the article. ~2025-35199-06 (talk) 15:51, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

Can you provide a source demonstrating this? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:54, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

The articles currently has two sourced claims that state that the term originated in either a Puerto Rican psychology publication, or in Feministas Unidas i.e. a Spanish-language publication. For this to be categorised as an English neologism, we need the article to actually state that it is one. Cortador (talk) 16:25, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree and changed. Saying that it is an English originated neologism is not a fair summary of the sources. Sibshops (talk) 18:33, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

Limiting overly broad statements in the opening paragraph

Much of the content in this article concerning public opinion on the term "Latinx" has come from surveys and polls, each asking different questions about the topic. Thus, when we say a certain share of people feel a certain way based on the results of a poll or survey, we need to be very careful about exactly what we mean. Currently, the last two paragraphs of the introductory section look like this (emphasis added, citations removed):

Popular usage of the term among Hispanic and Latino Americans has been generally limited and the reception to the term overwhelmingly negative in this group. Surveys have found that the vast majority prefer other terms such as Hispanic and Latina/Latino to describe themselves with only 2–3% using Latinx. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that roughly half of U.S. Hispanics were not aware of the term Latinx; of those aware of it, 75% said it should not be used to describe the Hispanic or Latino population, preferring instead the terms "Latino" and "Hispanic" by large margins.

Reception to the term has been mixed to negative. Of U.S. Hispanic adults familiar with "Latinx", more respondents viewed increased use of the term to be a bad thing than a good thing, but a majority were indifferent or unsure. Some linguists and scholars have criticized use of the term as being an imposition of English norms on the Spanish language. Others have suggested that use of the term among politicians alienates potential Latino voters.

Needless to say, it doesn't make sense to call reception to the same term among the same population "overwhelmingly negative" and "mixed to negative" in back-to-back paragraphs. So what's going on here?

@Pengortm: recently added the "overwhelmingly negative" line, justifying it by pointing to the question in the 2024 Pew study that asked whether Latinx "should" or "should not" be used to "describe the Hispanic or Latino community", where it gives a figure of 25% believing it should, and 75% believing it should not. However, there are two reasons that this question is not a good representation of how respondents felt about the term overall: First, the article notes that "Respondents who did not offer an answer [were] not shown" -- this means that an unknown portion of respondents who did not feel strongly enough to answer a straight "yes" or "no" are simply not represented in this statistic. Does that make the statistic useless? Of course not, but it does put make it impossible to tell exactly how wide the gulf between the answers really was without seeing the missing data. Secondly, while Pengortm's added text is very broad, simply saying that the overall "reception" to the term was "overwhelmingly negative", the relevant question was much more specific; it asked whether "Latinx" should be used "to describe the Hispanic or Latino population" as a whole. While it makes sense to assume a persons answer to this question would correlate with how they feel about the term in general, it is not the same question -- the word "Latinx" has more uses than just to describe the entire Hispanic/Latino population at large. Respondents' answers to this question are not a reliable proxy for how they feel in general about the term, but that is what is being implied by the addition of the phrase "overwhelmingly negative" into the paragraph.

Next, let's consider the final paragraph of the intro, which says reception is "mixed to negative". That wording is based on a different question asked by the Pew study, asking respondents who were already aware of "Latinx" whether "people using this term more often" is a "good thing", a "bad thing", or neither. The responses to this question are a much better proxy for how the respondents felt about the term in general for two reasons: First, the question does not mention a specific use case of the word, instead simply asking about its overall increase in usage. Second, the responses include respondents who answered "Neither a goo nor bad thing" and "Not sure", making the responses totally representative of the respondents who knew about the term previously. The responses to this question give quite a different impression than the previous one's 75-25 split: 36% said "bad thing", 38% said "neither", 12% said "good thing", and the remaining 14% said "Not sure". 52% of respondents either didn't feel strongly or weren't sure -- a majority! While this question also did not directly ask respondents whether they felt positively or negatively about the term in general, it offers a much better proxy to that hypothetical question than the one asking about whether the term should describe the Hispanic/Latino population.

So what about the article? Its current state is not correct, as it contradicts itself between two adjoining paragraphs, so what needs to change? One potential solution, if Pengortm is set on emphasizing the responses to the 75-25 question, is to better specify what, specifically, the negative reception is directed towards. Perhaps something like this:

Popular usage of the term among Hispanic and Latino Americans has been generally limited, and reception to the term as a potential classifier for the entire Hispanic/Latino population has been overwhelmingly negative.

I personally believe the paragraph was fine as it was, but could certainly accept a reworked sentence like the above as a potential compromise. The most important thing is for the article to not be unnecessarily broad when talking about survey results, especially for a topic as contentious as this one. Fischbol (talk) 06:48, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

Since the article is not correct as it currently stands (using "overwhelmingly negative" and "mixed to negative" in consecutive paragraphs), I don't want to wait around on this. I'll give @Pengortm: another day to provide input, then I'll go ahead and edit my compromise sentence in. Fischbol (talk) 06:11, 12 October 2026 (UTC)