Latinx Resources: Home

Latino/a/e/x: a person of Latin American origin or descent.

Chicano/a: a (United States) American of Mexican origin or descent. The term reached peak usage in 1978 in response to the Civil Rights Era in the 1960s and was largely replaced with latinx or simply Mexican-American.

Hispanic: "any of the peoples in the Americas and Spain who speak Spanish or are descended from Spanish-speaking communities. It was coined in the 1970s by the U.S. Census Bureau to offer a pan-ethnic name for peoples such as Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans and others, whose social, economic and political needs were often ignored." (Source: University of California)

Latin America encompasses all of South America, Central America (Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Belize), Mexico, and the Caribbean Islands. "The peoples of this large area shared the experience of conquest and colonization by the Spaniards and Portuguese from the late 15th through the 18th century as well as movements of independence from Spain and Portugal in the early 19th century." (Source: Britannica)

Spanish is a largely gendered language. This creates discomfort in those who don't identify with gender norms when they are being described as latino/a. Thus Latinx was born (mostly in Anglo academia) as a method for de-gendering the term. However, many latino/a people don't like the term's -x suffix as it does not translate well into Spanish; thus, many have shifted to latine ("lah-tee-nay") or forgone the entire premise and prefer to self-identify as their individual heritages (Mexican, Puerto Rican, etc.) For the purposes of this guide, we will be using the term latinx for search term optimization in an academic setting. 

NOTICE:

Latinx is not a one-size-fits-all term. As in all other aspects of life, it is best to refer to a person or group of people as they wish to be referred, not in the manner that is most comfortable for the speaker.