Coming To Terms With “Latinx”
*Why you should read this: Because Latino identity is complex enough without adding another option. Becasue this young Latina asks good questions about the Latinx choice. VL
By Arianna Davis, Refinery 29 (9.5 minute read) 
When I recently wrote an article pointing out why the Oscars need to recognize more Asians and Latinos, I was proud of my work — grateful that I can use my platform at Refinery29 to challenge my industry and others to be more inclusive, especially as a Latina. (Mama, I made it!)
So when I clicked on a final version of the piece and saw that the headline read “Hey, Hollywood: #OscarsSoWhite Means We Need More Asians & Latinx, Too,” I was confused. I knew I had written “Latinos” in both the headline and the article, yet any mention of “Latino” or “Latina” had been changed to “Latinx” throughout.
Read more stories about Latinx in NewsTaco. >>
A quick ping to my editor revealed that, like many other media outlets, Refinery29 had recently decided to adopt the word Latinx, a phrase born in the early aughts to be more inclusive of Latinos who are gender-non-conforming. By dropping the masculine “o,” Latinx (pronounced lah-teen-ex) does not default to a masculine connotation or exclude anyone it’s meant to include.
I’m an opinionated Black and Puerto Rican feminist who works at a forward-thinking women’s website, someone who prides herself on being inclusive, and using her work to examine her own privilege as well as points of view different from her own. You’d think adopting Latinx would be a no-brainer for me, right? Yet reading my own writing with a word I’d never used — and had only really seen used around the Internet here and there — felt, somehow…wrong. As if I was betraying some part of my culture, or causing the very people who I wanted my article to reach to instead stumble over it, all in an effort to achieve political-correctness.
It might sound like a simple word choice, but the decision is a complicated one. On the one hand, the word Latina is a badge I’ve worn with pride for nearly 30 years, a label that I associate with my family and my culture — my people. But on the other hand, if I choose to continue to call myself Latina, or refer to my family as Latinos, does that make me ignorant, or phobic, or an opponent of gender non-conformity? Am I being a hypocrite, not pushing myself to be as inclusive as I ask you, Refinery29’s readers, to be?
I had to learn a lot more before I could decide.
[Image courtesy of Refinery 29]