HARTFORD, Conn. — On her first day in office as Governor of the State of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders banned the use of Latinx. Now, a group of Connecticut House members is seeking to ban the use of Latinx in official state communication. The proposal will be taken up by a legislative committee this session.
“We want no group out here to think that the Democrats are being exclusive. We just want a word that’s created by Spanish people that’s accepted by the Spanish community that’s not a derivative of somebody just throwing an ‘x’ on a Latin word and calling it Spanish,” said Rep. Geraldo Reyes of Waterbury.
Reyes said that all six proponents of the bill, who are of Puerto Rican descent, agree Latinx is offensive. They feel the word Latin is sufficient and gender inclusive.
“Latino, Latina, Latin—it exists. Why do we have to create a word accepted by non-Hispanics for Hispanic culture,” he said.
“The future needs to be defined, the future needs to be anticipated, and ultimately needs to come and begin right now,” said Julia Wintner who curated the exhibit “The Future is Latinx,” a traveling exhibition uniting Hispanic artists. The exhibit is now available but was previously on display in Willimantic, Norwich, and most recently Hartford’s Park Street library.
Lleidi DeLeon is part of an academic professional group that embraces the term.
“We were thinking about should we change our name to Latinx and we debated it for a little bit. Right now, the name is Latino/a and I think that’s inclusive for what the network entails but when we have webinars, we always say Latinx network just to be inclusive of everyone,” said DeLeon when FOX61 caught up with her in Hartford Tuesday.
Most of the lawmakers proposing the bill are baby boomers with a millennial exception. Some argue Latinx is embraced by younger generations, but DeLeon says seeking to ban Latinx is not a forward-thinking move.
“It is regressive and it’s just not what the state of Connecticut should be doing at this point,” she said.
The bill would still have to clear the committee before reaching the voting stage.
Samaia Hernandez is a reporter for FOX61 News. She can be reached at shernandez@fox61.com. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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