Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) announced Thursday they’re introducing legislation that would prohibit federal agencies from using the term “Latinx,” the latest in a series of fights over a term meant to promote gender inclusivity.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, pictured at the Capitol in Washington, June 13. (AP Photo/J. Scott ... [+]
“Latinx,” which linguists say likely emerged in the early 2000s, is a gender-neutral term for Latin Americans that seeks to circumvent a grammatical mechanism of Spanish gender—all nouns in Spanish, living and inanimate, are assigned a grammatical gender—in an effort to be more inclusive to LGBTQ+ Hispanics, according to the Marriam Webster Dictionary, which added the term in 2018.
Cruz and Rubio, both Hispanic conservative lawmakers, announced the Respect for Hispanic Americans Act Thursday, which would ban federal agencies from using “Latinx” in any official communication.
Many conservatives, like Cruz and Rubio, have lambasted the term as a product of “wokeism” and of liberal elites trying to impose their political views on the Spanish language.
Rubio, in a press release announcing the legislation, called the term “fabricated woke terminology” and “a degradation tossed around by progressive elites.”
The two-page bill does not include any enforcement measures or penalties for violating and is unlikely to pass the Senate.
Cruz asserted, in the bill’s announcement, that Hispanic Americans “overwhelmingly oppose the term” (A 2020 Pew Research Center Poll found that roughly three quarters of U.S. Hispanics were not even aware of the term and only 3% use the term) and said he wants to “make sure our government does not bow to woke activists in our federal departments or agencies by insisting on ridiculous terminology.”
This is not the first time politicians have tried to erase “Latinx” from the official statements of government agencies. In April, Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) introduced similar legislation in the House that would also ban the term in federal agencies, specifically citing the Biden Administration, which has used the term on occasion, for “waging a woke crusade on Latino identity and the Spanish language.” Arkansas’ Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders barred use of the term in state documents as one of her first actions when she took office in January. Conservatives aren’t the only ones against the term though. While their reasons for opposing the term differ, Democrats in Connecticut, led by State Rep. Geraldo Reyes Jr., introduced legislation in February to bar the use of the term in government and state education documents, calling the term an act of cultural appropriation that attempts to Americanize the Spanish language.
Google Trends shows that interest in the term “Latinx” began steadily increasing in 2014 and 2015 before peaking around summer and fall 2015, around the same time the U.S. saw a national reckoning with race in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Interest has periodically spiked and fallen since, reaching a three-and-a-half-year low in July.
Ted Cruz offers bill that would bar federal agencies from using controversial term Latinx (Dallas Morning News)
Cruz and Rubio pitching bill to ban federal use of ‘Latinx’ (The Hill)