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Nobody Uses ‘Latinx,’ Poll Confirms

Latinx

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A recent poll conducted by Bendixen & Amandi confirms what poll after poll has already shown: despite the Democratic Party’s ample use of “Latinx”, an overwhelming majority (97%) of American Hispanics do not use it. The survey comes at a time when Latinos are disapproving of the Biden administration’s job and when the GOP appears to be solidifying its 2020 electoral gains with the Latino vote.

According to the survey, only 2% of Latino voters actually use “Latinx” as a way to describe themselves, compared to 68% who use “Hispanic” or 21% who use “Latino.” The poll also shows that not even Democratic Latinos are big “Latinx” users, as only 2% of Democratic respondents said they used it. Not even young Hispanics are lovers of the term, as only 4% of 18-29 years old-participants say they use Latinx.  

It is not only that people do not use “Latinx” but also that a large percentage of Latinos have an active disdain for it, the poll shows that 40% of Hispanics are either offended or bothered when Latinx is used to describe the Latino community. Again, this rejection of the Latinx invention is not exclusive to the GOP. 40% of Latino Democrats say they are at least somewhat bothered when someone uses “Latinx” to describe them.

The GOP has made inroads in the Latino electorate over the last year (Image:Flickr)

In fact, almost a third of Hispanics are less likely to support a candidate or political organization that uses Latinx. That number goes up to 43% for Latino Republicans, and surprisingly almost a quarter of Democrats also said they are less likely to support a candidate who uses the term.

This poll is definitely not an outlier, as a 2020 Pew poll found out that only 3% of Hispanics use it and a 2021 Gallup survey showed that only 4% of Latinos use it.

Despite the backlash, Progressives keep using “Latinx”

The well-documented disdain of Latinx by the vast majority of Hispanics over has not stopped Democratic politicians to use the term. During the midst of the 2020 presidential campaign, both primary candidate Elizabeth Warren and VP nominee Kamala Harris used the word when trying to address the Latino community. Harris has since stopped using the term as much on Twitter.

Just a few months ago, President Biden talked about vaccination efforts across the “Latinx” community, and most recently, the official Twitter account of the Democratic Party congratulated the “Latinx American” community during Hispanic Heritage Month.

A Pew Research study found out that almost half of the Democratic Congressional Caucus used the term between 2015-2020. Activists have also used the term consistently, the ACLU even filed a legal complaint against Border Patrol in 2019 where they used the term. In fact, in 2021 ACLU’s Twitter has made more use of “Latinx” than any other term when referring to the Hispanic Community, based on a content analysis made by El American.

Higher-education institutions also use the term constantly:  Columbia University has a “Latinx and Latin American Faculty Working Group”, Harvard has a graduate program on “Latinx studies, and even Universities with a high proportion of Hispanic students (like the University of South Florida) have adopted the little-used term to refer to Hispanic students.

Progressive media outlets have also made use of the “Latinx” term, just a few weeks ago CNN published an article referring to “Latinx” creators” and Vox also using “Latinx” constantly when talking about the Hispanic community.

The recent poll results show that despite years of trying to push a term that is not even pronounceable in Spanish have failed miserably, it is up to progressives whether they get the memo or not.

Daniel is a Political Science and Economics student from the University of South Florida. He worked as a congressional intern to Rep. Gus Bilirakis (FL-12) from January to May 2020. He also is the head of international analysis at Politiks // Daniel es un estudiante de Cs Políticas y Economía en la Universidad del Sur de la Florida. Trabajo como pasante legislativo para el Representate Gus Bilirakis (FL-12) desde enero hasta mayo del 2020. Daniel también es el jefe de análisis internacional de Politiks.

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