Diego Santiago Diez
You can run from leftist culture, but you can’t hide
 Young Latino—oops!—Latinx couple in Los Angeles. [dropcap]I[/dropcap] was reading those darling, shining, blameless fake-liberals of the US government media – National Public Radio – when I came across the following lede sentence:
They aren’t talking about me, because I never heard another Latino use this phrase, but I searched it – “Latinx” is all over the place! This raises many problems, including what is a “Latin@“ – are Latinos supposed to digitize themselves or something? “It’s part of a “linguistic revolution” that aims to move beyond gender binaries and is inclusive of the intersecting identities of Latin American descendants. In addition to men and women from all racial backgrounds, Latinx also makes room for people who are trans, queer, agender, non-binary, gender non-conforming or gender fluid.” Ay Dios mio… so the issue is the way the Spanish language uses gender? Well, this is something that cannot really be changed without rewiring every Spanish-language book ever – it would be more efficient if the world all changed to Esperanto/reconstructed the tower of Babel. But I’ll play along – ok. If this is what Americanx want, to make their language quite ugly because the tiny percentage of people who don’t define themselves as one gender say so, ok. But why is it just for “Latinos”? I read stories about Danex and Englix and never see this now-important ‘x’? If it is only for languages with genders, then at least I should see what’s going on with the Italianx, Frencx and Arabx. Many Germanic languages have three genders, including a neutered gender- how about we start seeing some stories about Swedø and Finnø? Why are Latinos the American guinea pig? We are faceless and powerless in US society – must we lose our gender as well? Ay Dios mio is right! This is not a new issue – why is it “Latino” at all? I guess that was an upgrade on “Hispanic”, which was created by the Nixon administration, but the many Italian descendants in Latin America may be miffed that they are assumed to hail from “Hispania”, i.e. the Iberian Peninsula/Spain. The US mercifully realised Latinos were not going to adopt their creation of “Hispanic”, and switched to “Latino”.  Somebody should ask Edward James Olmos if he feels like a genuine “LatinX” . But take a look at the racial composition of Central and South Americans – most of them have very little trace of “latin” – i.e. Italian, Spanish, French, the broad Mediterranean, type of blood – they are Indian. “Latino” is a way to Europeanize indigenous Indians, and it acts as if haling from “Latin(o) Southern Europe” is obviously a good and desirable upgrade. The larger point here is the US pattern of imposing a false construction on people from south of the Rio Grande, and that includes not just “Latinx” but also the Indians north of El Rio. Associated Press, whose style book is the dominant force in journalism, promoted “Latinx” and also forbid the use of the word “Indian” to describe non-Indian Indians last year. Here’s the problem with that: uniformly, Indians from America refer to themselves as “Indians”. I can see why – their grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents did the same. These generations, who had an illustrious history and culture, were perfectly aware that they were the “native” Americans compared to whites and blacks, but they went with Indian anyway for centuries. We must remember that “Indian” is an expressly political concept – it is always “the nation of the such-and-such tribe”. “Native American”, under the guise of inclusiveness, removes this political/cultural/ideological distinction which Indians chose and which clearly emphasises their rejection of “America”. “Native American” says – “You are a citizen of America”; many Indians respond, “It sure doesn’t seem that way on the rez.” However, use “Indian” today and you are deplorable… or an Indian.  SARTORIAL DEFIANCE—A Los Angeles Pachuco—quick! what European country did he come from? And please don’t insult him. Latinos, Latinx and Hispanics do not use any of these terms – they mostly define themselves by their nation. Latino is something American immigrants may use, but I have yet to meet someone who uses “Latinx”, but this could be because where I work has no Latinos to teach their “Latin-American History” classes. Back to “Native American” – it is thus a disempowering term of control used by non-Indian whites to control Indian culture and their worldview. Perhaps it was made with the best of intentions, but aren’t all of the US non-linguistic “humanitarian interventions”? “African-American” seems less problematic – at least they are getting past sheer skin colour, and they are accurately denoting where these slave descendants first came from. Excuse me, I meant “Africax-Americanx”. “Latinx” is another tool of US liberal “identity politics”, which is the opposite of broad socialist unity. I have noticed that US identity politics has increasingly become dominated by the promotion of non- or even anti-heterosexual thought, even though such groups (especially those who don’t identify as one gender) are a tiny minority statistically. I have also noticed it is impossible to fight this group – they are now dominant in US culture despite their tiny minority status, disagreeable combativeness, self-centredness and general agreement with neoliberalism and neo-imperialism. This was parenthetically admitted by the Columbia Journalism Review in their discussion of AP’s use of “Latinx”: “(This is eerily reminiscent of the first uses of ‘Ms.,’ which were often accompanied by the explanation that that was what the woman ‘preferred to be called.’ It sounds quaint now, as does the admonition to explain if someone wanted to be identified as ‘African-American.’ Perhaps the ‘Latinx’ explanation will be as well before too long.)” The “Latinx explanation” sucks. It is not what Latinos want to be called, excepting a statistically minuscule section of people who used to be called hermaphrodites. However, “the combination of Hermes and Aphrodite” is apparently now an insult – I guess the feelings of Greco-Roman pagans don’t count, but the feelings of modern hermaphrodites do? Certainly, “Latinx” does not “make room” for the tiny portion of people who don’t identify as one gender – it makes their minority ideology unfairly dominant, and it promotes useless, non-class centered identity politics on the average person to keep them wage-slaves and jingoist supporters of neo-imperialism. If you insist on calling me “Latinx”, I would prefer that you just not call me.  Chicano actor Danny Trejo—”Machete”—with loyal friend. Tell him he’s a “LatinX” at your own risk.
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[su_box title=”ABOUT THE AUTHOR” style=”bubbles” box_color=”#7978cc”] Diego Santiago Diez is an academic working in the United States of America. American culture both fascinates and repels him. In that regard, he’s certainly not alone.
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1 comment
I had a furious knockem down drag em out fight with some college girl who kept saying she “loved her people” the Latinx. She runs a site called “mijente” which is in itself an insult. My God what ignorance, perpetrated by the gabacho school of brainwashing. Dios mio is right.