The Representation of Latinx
About one in four Hispanics have heard of Latinx, but just three use it, according to a new study- Pew Research.
In the Dominican Republic, no one ever called me Hispanic, or Latina, or Latinx. I was just Joa. However, the Dominican Republic does differentiate between blacks and whites by calling blacks Haitianos even when they are born in the D.R. That should have been a red-racist flag that I should have noticed but didn’t. Or perhaps it was the push to shove Spanish ancestry on us at school while erasing Taino and African ancestry that should have been the second red flag. Nevertheless, I immigrated when I was nine, and long and behold, the U.S. categorized me as Hispanic. This may have been because of where I migrated to — the east coast — or the time. But none said Latina back then until now. And while I am all about using a name that allows for gender fluidity and decentralizes colonization, I’m a bit cautious of this term. Whenever I see it or hear it, it represents a person who looks like me, when I know that Latin American folks come in various skin tones.
“Few people realise that the Dominican Republic was home to the first black people in the Americas,” Lebawit Lily Girma from the BBC article ‘Santo Domingo: The city that kept slavery silent.’
It feels like, once again, much like what I experienced in school in the Dominican…
