Why <em>Latinx</em> Can’t Catch On
Why hasn't the term Latinx caught on the way African American did in the late 1980s?
African American became a cherished replacement for black right around when Jesse Jackson embraced it at a news conference, in 1988. Latinx, fashioned to get past the gender distinction encoded in Latino and Latina, has not replicated that success since its introduction, in 2014. It has been celebrated by intellectuals, journalists, and university officials, and even used by Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren. But in one poll, only 2 percent of America’s Latinos said they preferred the term.
The reason for the difference is familiar to linguists who study how languages change. Although it may seem that new elements began as a neologism associated with people of lesser education, but was eventually adopted by everyone else.
