Latinx thoughts: Latinidad with an X

The term Latinx has become a site of contention, like Latino once was. Our goal is to propose an articulation of Latina/o/x populations through the term Latinx as a site of possibilities, while clarifying its potential use and the reasoning behind it. Rather than seeing the use of Latinx as a trend, or a rupture, in linguistic usage, we see its use as a continuity of internal shifting group dynamics and disciplinary debates. Complicating the argument that the term Latinx is an imperialist imposition on the Spanish language is possible by reclaiming the x history of ( racial and ethnic) resistance as a marker of nonwhiteness (for example, in Xicana feminism), while turning to the x usage by Latin American and Spanish-speaking activists. Latinx foregrounds tensions among self-naming practices and terms that encompass all members of a diverse and complex ethnoracial group: Latinx acts as a new frame of inclusion, while also posing a challenge for those used to having androcentric terms serve as collective representational proxies.