Latino, latino/a, latinx, latin@

According to a recent article from the Washington Post, “Latinx” has become the favorite word to identify people with Latin American descent in the United States. With such popularity it has been added to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. It’s not the first time we hear and see these changes in the online communities. These variations have gained acceptance in Spanish, particularly in Twitter posts from Latin American countries which come especially from local opinion leaders and politicians.

Peter Socolowsky, who works at Merriam-Webster, believes that the “X” construction could become a model for other languages such as French or Filipino. However, people from RAE (Real Academia de la Lengua Española) have been reluctant to changes, in spite of insisting on an inclusive use of Spanish. In a tweet they claimed that "The use of the @ or the letters "e" and "x" as supposed inclusive gender marks is alien to the Spanish morphology, as well as unnecessary."

For some, “Latinx” anglicizes the language, and Ruby Corado, a transgender activist from El Salvador, finds the word “Latina” more preferable and less complex. “I grew up fighting for my gender to be recognized as Latina… but [Latinx] is something I’m adapting to as I’m doing work with millennials.”