The Breakdown: What’s the difference between Latino and Hispanic? What the hell is “Latinx?” What is “Afro-Latinx?”
September 15 — October 15 may be officially called “Hispanic Heritage Month” but please don’t call me Hispanic because I’m Afro-Latinx. What’s that? Let’s break it down.
On the difference between Latino and Hispanic
I love the comic created by Terry Blas where he illustrates how Latino is a term telling you about Geography and Hispanic is a term that is telling you about Language. Latino means from Latin America. Latin America refers mostly to everything below the U.S. including the Caribbean. Hispanic means from a country whose primary language is Spanish but not every country in Latin America speaks Spanish.
However, even this distinction can bring up different nuances. As Élida Bautista, PhD, Director of Inclusion and Diversity at University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, explains:
While I’ve seen it used widely, I think the Geography vs. Language categorization doesn’t fully hold up. For one we need to include people whose origins are from the U.S. southwest and trace their heritage from when these states were part of Spain or Mexico. And just to complicate it a little more, English speaking countries in the Caribbean are not typically referred to as Latin American (cuz they’re not of a Latin-language origin) and neither are Francophone ones though they are technically a “Latin” language country. However, non-Spanish speaking countries in Central & South America (Surinam, Brazil, Belize, etc) are usually included in the perceived “Latinx” community. We’re a complicated pan-identity :D.
Complicated, indeed!
My family is from Ecuador — my Father is Black Ecuadorian from Esmeraldas and my mother’s family is Indigenous. Ecuador, like many other nations in Latin America, has a rich indigenous history and many native languages like Quechua which were forcibly erased via colonization and Spanish was made to be the primary language of the land. In fact, the vast majority of Latin American countries did not speak Spanish until they were colonized. Given this painful history of colonization and imperialism, it’s important that we do not blanket use the term “Hispanic” to describe communities whose indigenous culture often experiences erasure.
While the term Hispanic was intended to use the Spanish language as a unifier to describe a group of people, it does not account for how Spanish became dominant at the expense of Indigenous people. The term Hispanic also excludes countries like Brazil and Portugal where Spanish is not the primary language, although there are many Spanish speakers who reside in those countries.
Latino, Latina, Latin@, Latinx?
Spanish is a romance language, meaning it derives from Latin, and words in Spanish are considered either masculine or feminine. The last letter of words in Spanish also change when referring to men or women. For example, Latina uses the A at the end to refer to women. Latino refers to men or both men and women because the presence of one man in a group of women changes the conjugation (patriarchy!).
The spelling Latin@ is used to attempt to reflect both the O and A (Masculine and Feminine) by using an @ symbol which visually is an O and A. Unfortunately, this delineation erases non-binary people who do not identify as Man or Woman exclusively and further enforces a gender binary. Therefore, in an effort to be more gender inclusive, folks in the U.S. have been using Latinx. This has caused much controversy and tension within the community as some believe the X is a Western imposition on the Spanish language and instead prefer using Latine since E is already inherent in the Spanish language and is gender neutral.
Afro-Latinx?
While I grew up answering to Negra and Morena which literally mean Black in Spanish, I never realized I was Black and never identified as Black. It was not until later that I had the language and awareness to acknowledge my Blackness as an Afro-Latinx person.
Afro-Latinx refers to a Black person from Latin America. How did Black people get to Latin America, you may ask? According to Black in Latin America, there were 11.2 million enslaved Africans that we can count who survived the Middle Passage of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and landed in the New World, and of that 11.2 million, only 450,000 were taken to the United States, while the rest were brought to south of Miami as it were. Brazil got almost 5 million Africans. Roberto Carlos Garcia in The Root states, “Despite sharing the identity of Latinx, colonial structures of privilege and power thrive within the community … Black and Indigenous Latinxs are consistently forced to the sidelines and denied, despite their strong influences to Latinx culture.” It’s important to note Anti-Blackness and colorism exist in Latinx culture, which further contributes to the invisibility of Afro-Latinx as an identity.
So now that you know a bit more about my community, what can you do to practice thoughtful allyship?
Latinx Allyship Dos and Don’ts!
- Do ask people how they identify rather than assuming. This is a great rule for gender as well as racial/ethnic identity.
- Do interrupt anti-immigrant rhetoric, chants, or jokes, especially ones targeting Latinx or Hispanic communities.
- Do follow diverse Latinx media to stay up to date on issues facing the community to continue your education (Remezcla, Queerxicanochisme, Familiatqlm, Cosecha).
- Don’t assume all undocumented immigrants are Latinx — this is a widely held misassumption that hurts many communities.
- Don’t assume every Latinx person speaks Spanish. Julian Castro recently shared that he does not speak fluent Spanish and addressed this presumption directly. One’s ability to speak Spanish doesn’t validate or invalidate one’s identity as a Latinx person.
- Don’t assume all Latinx people are all People of Color. Some Latinx folks, as a result of their appearance, can be perceived to be White in different spaces. The ability to be seen as White is often referred to as “White Passing.” Because Latinx peoples’ phenotypes vary, not all Latinx people are People of Color.
According to the U.S. Census, people of “Latino or Hispanic” ethnicity are currently the largest minority group in the U.S. These words shouldn’t be used interchangeably as they refer to different aspects of the community. Not everyone who is Latinx is Hispanic and vice versa.
I refrain from using the term Hispanic to refer to myself or others because of its problematic framing centering the Spanish language. Perhaps as this population grows, language will also evolve to reflect the diversity in the community.
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