The Latinx label is struggling to gain acceptance, but it's on the rise, Pew survey finds

The gender-neutral label, Latinx, has emerged in recent years as an alternative word to describe the nation’s Hispanic population, and has especially caught on with news and entertainment media outlets, as well as progressive politicians and academics.

However, only 23% of U.S. adults who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino have heard of the term Latinx, and just 3% say they use it to describe themselves, according to a nationally representative, bilingual survey of U.S. Hispanic adults conducted by the Pew Research Center.

“When asked about their preferred pan-ethnic term to describe the Hispanic or Latino population, a vast majority of adults say they prefer other over Latinx,” the study states.

The survey found that 61% say they prefer the term Hispanic, followed by 29% who prefer the term Latino and 5% who say something else.

While only about a quarter of U.S. Hispanics say they have heard the term Latinx, awareness and use vary across different age-groups, according to Pew. Some 42% of young Hispanics, ages 18 to 29, are have heard of the term, compared with 7% of those ages 65 or older.

However, the share of Hispanics who say they use Latinx to describe their own identity is significantly lower than the share who say they have heard it. Use is among the highest for Hispanic women ages 18 to 29, and even then, only 14% say they use it. Only 1% of Hispanic men in the same age group say they use it.

Hispanics with college experience are also more likely to be aware of Latinx than those without college experience; about four-in-ten Hispanic college graduates (38%) say they have heard of Latinx. By comparison, just 14% of those with a high school diploma or less are aware of the term.

In addition, twice as many U.S. born (32%) are likely to have heard the term than foreign born (16%), and Hispanics who are predominantly English speakers or bilingual are four times more likely than those who mainly speak Spanish to say the same.

Among Hispanics who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, 29% say they have heard of the term, compared to only 16% of those who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party.

The Latinx debate

The Pew study is the most definitive effort yet to test acceptance of the Latinx label and provides ammunition for both sides in an intense debate over its usage. In its first ever Latinx acceptance study, Pew surveyed 3,030 U.S. Hispanic adults in December 2019 in both English and Spanish.

While acceptance of the label may still be low, the survey shows it is higher than critics have estimated and appears to be growing. Among those aware of Latinx, one-in-three say it should be used to describe the nation’s Hispanic or Latino population, even if it was not their preferred choice.

In the United States, the use of the word Latinx appeared more than a decade ago and was added to a widely used English dictionary in 2018, part of the movement to introduce gender-neutral nouns and pronouns into languages whose grammar uses different male or female gender constructions, such as Spanish.

But, the term’s emergence has generated debate about its usage. Advocates of the term see Latinx as a gender- and LGBTQ-inclusive term, reflecting a broader movement within the U.S. around gender identity. While others question its appropriateness, saying it is a politically correct, social media creation that ignores the deep-rooted tradition of the gender-based structure of the Spanish language.

" do come and go. The debate about Latinx reflects the times we live in and the changing sensibilities we have about how we identify ourselves," said Mark Hugo Lopez, Director of Hispanic Research at the Pew Research Center. "Our results show how relatively unknown the term is. Maybe it will rise is popularity. Perhaps there will be an event that will raise it to greater adoption. On the other hand, we may see other emerge," he added.

Language and tradition

Masculine and feminine nouns are traditionally used in gendered languages. For example, “friends” in Spanish is translated as “amigos” the masculine gender for friends in Spanish, whether or not it refers to a group including female friends, or "amigas."

That has led to some advocating for a neutral replacement for “a” and “o” in the ending of words that refer to groups of people – using the “e”, so instead of “todos” or “todas”, one might say “todes”.

However, those who argue for tradition ignore the fact that the two widely accepted labels - Hispanic and Latino – are also relatively new, with origins in the 1970s and 1990s respectively. The term Latinx also appears to be growing in online popularity, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Google Trends data. It found that its usage has grown steadily since it first appeared in the early 2000s, and rose substantially in 2016 following the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. It reached a new peak in June 2020.

But its acceptance still has a long way to go. Only 10% of those who are aware of Latinx prefer it over other , while 50% still prefer Hispanic and 31% stick with Latino.