nailed it, Antonio! this article brought back so many memories, A a Cuban (marielito) growing up in Miami in the 80's my experience was very similar. Haven't heard anyone use the word 'bayu' in a long time. Now you need to figure out a way to weave 'asere' into an upcoming post.
I have a Korean friend who moved here a few years ago. He was completely baffled by the recent blowup around anti-Asian discrimination. He doesn’t identify as Asian at all and doesn’t recognize any such category, one that would include him along with people from Mongolia and Laos but not, say, Italy. He sees himself as Korean. It’s odd to live in a place with ideas about people that are both impoverished and counterintuitive.
Yeah, if you talk to people who actually have a real connection to whatever foreign culture is their own, they find this entire diversity apparatus silly, to not say objectionable. I don't want to swim too much out of my lane, but it's the Miami Cuban experience all over again, but with different cultural particulars.
Great point, and one I hadn't heard before (at least not from this perspective). It's especially funny to imagine what people in the communities you describe would make of Robin DiAngelo, and the idea that the inner feelings of white liberals are hugely consequential for "PoC."
Everyone in Miami just sits there with their 'cafe con leche' in the morning, worrying what DiAngelo thinks about them and whether she's done the correct anti-racist ablutions this morning.....
I had a friend in college who went from Latinx, now she says Latine is the new thing, because it's actually pronouncable. Even in Mexico, I see memes on facebook saying Amix or solo buscando para amixes on Tinder. It's curious how these things get adopted from the states through social media platforms, meanwhile the young people get zero education on who's actually running the politics in their country.
I talked to native speakers of Spanish back in the '90s about various ideas around grammatical gender -- I did a degree in Linguistics, and while I wouldn't say I'm _fluent_ in Spanish, it's the language other than English that I can speak with any competence. (I've traveled in Mexico and Spain, and I get by.) The -e idea was already in circulation at least as far back as 1995. My understanding is it's picked up a fair amount of steam with people under 30 in Argentina.
But yeah, I would never use "Latinx" unless a person self-identified that way first. I have friends from Mexican, Dominican, and Cuban backgrounds who have each separately told me they find the term cringe-y. I really worry that every time a prominent Democrat says it in public, we lose a dozen voters in places like the Rio Grande Valley.
'I would never use "Latinx" unless a person self-identified that way first.'
Since only a white liberal humanities graduate would ever self-identify as Latinx, I guess you'll never have the opportunity to use it on an actual Hispanic person.
I suppose I _should_ say I know a couple Latinx liberal humanities graduates who prefer it. Although if the point is to align heavily-gendered Español to our new gender-neutral norms, then Hispanic, or hispanohablante, also accomplish that.
nailed it, Antonio! this article brought back so many memories, A a Cuban (marielito) growing up in Miami in the 80's my experience was very similar. Haven't heard anyone use the word 'bayu' in a long time. Now you need to figure out a way to weave 'asere' into an upcoming post.
Bayuuuuú!! :)
Latinx?
Burritx?
Tacx?
Where does it end? What other language will white liberals re-appropriate?
Slichx, efx hx shxrutim?
By the way, you remind me of a young Ben Franklin. I remember reading his biography 10 years ago thinking "damn, why can't I be that smart?"
I have a Korean friend who moved here a few years ago. He was completely baffled by the recent blowup around anti-Asian discrimination. He doesn’t identify as Asian at all and doesn’t recognize any such category, one that would include him along with people from Mongolia and Laos but not, say, Italy. He sees himself as Korean. It’s odd to live in a place with ideas about people that are both impoverished and counterintuitive.
Yeah, if you talk to people who actually have a real connection to whatever foreign culture is their own, they find this entire diversity apparatus silly, to not say objectionable. I don't want to swim too much out of my lane, but it's the Miami Cuban experience all over again, but with different cultural particulars.
Great point, and one I hadn't heard before (at least not from this perspective). It's especially funny to imagine what people in the communities you describe would make of Robin DiAngelo, and the idea that the inner feelings of white liberals are hugely consequential for "PoC."
Everyone in Miami just sits there with their 'cafe con leche' in the morning, worrying what DiAngelo thinks about them and whether she's done the correct anti-racist ablutions this morning.....
I had a friend in college who went from Latinx, now she says Latine is the new thing, because it's actually pronouncable. Even in Mexico, I see memes on facebook saying Amix or solo buscando para amixes on Tinder. It's curious how these things get adopted from the states through social media platforms, meanwhile the young people get zero education on who's actually running the politics in their country.
Tumblr did a net harm to society.
I talked to native speakers of Spanish back in the '90s about various ideas around grammatical gender -- I did a degree in Linguistics, and while I wouldn't say I'm _fluent_ in Spanish, it's the language other than English that I can speak with any competence. (I've traveled in Mexico and Spain, and I get by.) The -e idea was already in circulation at least as far back as 1995. My understanding is it's picked up a fair amount of steam with people under 30 in Argentina.
But yeah, I would never use "Latinx" unless a person self-identified that way first. I have friends from Mexican, Dominican, and Cuban backgrounds who have each separately told me they find the term cringe-y. I really worry that every time a prominent Democrat says it in public, we lose a dozen voters in places like the Rio Grande Valley.
'I would never use "Latinx" unless a person self-identified that way first.'
Since only a white liberal humanities graduate would ever self-identify as Latinx, I guess you'll never have the opportunity to use it on an actual Hispanic person.
I know a couple Hispanic liberal humanities graduates who prefer it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
O brave new world, that has such people in 't!
I suppose I _should_ say I know a couple Latinx liberal humanities graduates who prefer it. Although if the point is to align heavily-gendered Español to our new gender-neutral norms, then Hispanic, or hispanohablante, also accomplish that.