Posted on 12/03/2018 10:24:05 AM PST by DeweyCA
UC San Diego has begun using new words to refer to Latinos and Chicanos in a move that reflects the profound change that’s occurring nationally in the way many people define their gender and sexuality.
The “gender specific” terms Latino and Chicano are being selectively replaced with Latinx and Chicanx to promote acceptance of virtually anyone who falls under the headings.
The change is being promoted by students, social justice activists and the LGBT community, which are trying to get people to look beyond conventional notions of gender, sex and appearance.
As broadly used, Latino refers to people of Latin American origin or descent.
Latinx includes: men and women of Latin American descent; people who are not exclusively male or female; people who don’t think of themselves as a man or a woman; people who don’t act or dress in ways that are common to people of their gender.
The same basic definition applies to Chicanx, with the exception of heritage. Chicanos are Americans of Mexican descent.
“This is about making the university more inclusive,” said Becky Pettit, UC San Diego’s vice chancellor of equity, diversity and inclusion. “We’re meeting students where they are.”
The university also is trying to more broadly appeal to Latinos and Hispanics, an area where it has lagged behind some University of California campuses.
The new word changes, made this week, mean that the school will use Latinx and Chicanx in a lot of its official communications, such as news releases and publicity. The words also might end up being used in the naming of certain campus events.
Schools like Grossmont and MiraCosta colleges already use those terms in their publicity. So does UC Irvine. The University of San Diego holds a Chicanx/Latinx graduation.
But deeper change is being sought. And it involves two words — Latinx and Chicanx — that are not widely used by the general public, partly because there’s confusion about what the words mean, and how they are pronounced.
People are especially perplexed by Latinx, which was reflected in a reader survey published earlier this year by Remezcla, a media company.
The survey found that readers were almost evenly divided between pronouncing Latinx as latin-x and la-teen-x. A small percentage preferred lah-tinks. Still others have suggested referring to Latinos as Latin@, a gender-neutral term that hasn’t caught on.
Colleges and universities are often among the first places for new words and language to appear. That’s precisely what’s been happening over the past couple of years.
At UC San Diego, it is no longer uncommon for a person to announce their “personal pronouns” when they introduce themselves at a meeting.
For example, a person might say, “my pronouns are he/him/his” or “she/her/hers.” Or they could ask to simply be referred to as “they” because their gender identity doesn’t neatly match that of a man or a woman.
The issue of gender identity also has surfaced in the way students apply for undergraduate admission to the University of California system.
Students can now choose from heterosexual/straight, bisexual, gay, and lesbian to describe their sexuality.
Under gender, they can select, gender non-conforming, genderqueer, transgender, trans man, trans male, trans woman, trans female.
Making a selection — which is voluntary — can be confusing. Some of the terms aren’t well-known to the general public, and some have multiple meanings.
The UC says that genderqueer refers to “a person whose gender identity and/or gender expression falls outside of the dominant social norm of the assigned sex, is beyond genders, or is some combination.”
The new California Gender Recognition Act is likely to make all of these terms more familiar to a wider audience. The act, which begins to take effect on January 1st, will make it easier for people who are transgender, nonbinary or intersex to obtain state-issued IDs that specify their gender.
“Terms and practices change over time,” said Dayo F. Gore, an ethnic studies professor at UC San Diego. “It doesn’t mean it is a zero sum game. The important thing is how do we think about the changes. It gives us a chance to be open and speak.”
The Union-Tribune asked Pettit whether some people will view words such as Latinx as an act of political correctness, leading to blowback against the campus.
“I think the nature of higher education as institutions is to create spaces for resistance and for people to redefine themselves and for people to redefine the world that they want to live in,” Pettit said.
“I don’t mean to sound flippant but that’s what universities exist for: to allow people to think freely, to allow people to redefine and shift culture.”
Stoopid gringos.
Not a cultural shift.
Just a continued descent into madness.
Why did we ever use the Latina/Latino thing in the first place?
We speak English, and our language does not change adjectives based on the sex of the thing.
I would wager Spanish, also, does not use the RULES OF ENGLISH when constructing sentences in Spanish.
Example:
“I saw a gaggle of Latino cheerleaders primping before their appearance at the big game.”
I missed the part where it says what Latinos and Latinas think of this.
I just watch this stuff with morbid fascination.
Just consider, the left loves Hispanics, because they vote Democrat. The left also loves pretending there are 57 genders. Hispanics speak Spanish. Spanish uses masculine and feminine nouns. Not 57 flavors. You have el and la. Does this mean Spanish is gender biased? But the left loves multilingualism.
A slow motion train wreck is in progress.
So destroy a Romance language that uses gender designations in their nouns to be politically correct. How about replace o and a in all the Spanish nouns with x?
El stupido.
Never mind offending real men and women. They don’t count.
Hey Gringx, don’t start trouble or you’ll have to answer to Panchx and Ciscx.
I’d embrace it.
It’s frankly stupid to have to specify what sex (NOT gender) one is along with nationality/etc.
That would be Gringox.
Prounouncation?
Latinx and Chicanx
la-TINX and chi-CANX
Wouldn’t that be right?
Latinxs? Latinks? Laticks?
I vote for Door #3. Hey, I’m married to a LatinA, emphasis on the “A” - so I can make fun if I want to do so.
I am SOOOO sick and tired of this PC crap. I think that the only way that we are finally going to be free of this plague of nonsense is if we are nuked, or enter into a (not so) civil war; otherwise, the other side just won’t stop. Our only successful weapon is, ironically enough, Alinsky and his message of making fun of the other side.
"Latinx" is just a monstrosity...but pretty soon it will be considered hate speech to use anything else.
This supposed journalist didn’t take the time to ask a few students? I’m guessing most will reject this policy outright. Snowflake white students have been bullied and brainwashed that their culture is evil and irrelevant, but Latino students not so much.
The Spanish language is sexist and patriarchal!
Didn't you get the memo? Spanish now has only a single pronoun: lx.
Regards,
I know a lot of Mexican Americans who hate being called “latino” or “Hispanic”. They say those are foreign terms that have been imposed on them by white people. They want to be called “Mexican” or “Mexican American”.
Also, the Spanish language has rules of grammar and gender. Unlike the way that people speak English in this country, when speaking or using Spanish the rules are expected to be obeyed.
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