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Short Stuff: What is Latinx anyway? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, you know, welcome to short Stuff. I'm Josh and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and we are the short Stuffers who are
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: going to talk to you about a new term for
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: the Latino community. Latino community. See, here's the reason for
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: a new term. Yeah. So I remember when we did
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: our episode on zoot suits, Uh, there was you know,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: we always try to keep up with the latest correct
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: terminology that people want to be called, because people get
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: to decide themselves what they want to be called. And
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I think at the time there were references to a
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: word chicano. Is that right? Did we do that? Did
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: we say that? Well? We did, but we also said
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: it in context of that's what they were called at
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the time. And here's the thing. Depending on who you are,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: where you are, and when you are, these terms have
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: been uh, sort of interchangeable to some people. Some of
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: these terms have been um in fashion and then out
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: of fashion, perhaps maybe offensive or not offensive, or maybe
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: pride wrapped around a term that other people might think
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: might be offensive. Yeah. And what's interesting is some of
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: those terms of transition through all those things over time
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: and geography too. And to know all that, Chuck is
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: to really remember, be reminded that, Um. You know, when
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: you consider entire racial groups, we tend to think of
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: them as like one collective whole that share all the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: same similarities and and have zero differences. And this, this
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: is a very important reminder that no different people consider
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: themselves different things, even within certain racial groups. And then
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: take it eat one step even further and say, oh, well,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: that would suggest that racial groups are actually a social
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: and cultural construct, not a biological construct. Then you finally
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: arrived at the right frame of mind to be a
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: human being. That's right. I mean, technically, if you really,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: um always want to honor a person and do the
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: right thing, you call someone Mexican or Colombian or Honduran
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: or Guatemalan and get very or Spanish and get very
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: specific with the country that they come from. But we
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: as humans like to um put a collective name on
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: groups of people. That's just what we've always done. Uh.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: In the fifties and a lot of this stuff comes
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: from this house too works article and a historian named
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Paul Ortiz, who is a professor at the University of Florida,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: which we won't hold against him, um, but he points
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: out that in the fifties and and even Before that, Uh,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Chicano was a term of derision, but then it was
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  Speaker 1: kind of adopted and became a term of pride with
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: the rise of a few things, the Mexican student movement
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  Speaker 1: in California, the farm workers movement, and people said, you
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: know what, Chicano was a term of pride, term of
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  Speaker 1: self respect, and he likened it to um African American
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: and the term black. How the term black or blacks
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  Speaker 1: wasn't very favored for a long time, and then in
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the Civil Rights movement they said, no, black is beautiful.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: That's who we are, and that's what we are. Yeah,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, like, what better way to to um, deflate
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the power out of a word that's used against you
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: than to take it on yourself and use it as
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: a as a name of pride. I mean, that's that's
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: podcasters right, right, which has always been a term of
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: scorn for the outside world, but that's right, we're taking
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: it on with pride. So yeah, so um a lot.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: When we were growing up, chuck um, Hispanic was always
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  Speaker 1: the term, I mean, virtually until just a few years ago, Hispanic.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: But as time we're on it went from you know,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: those are Hispanic people to those are Hispanic people. And
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: you just kind of got this idea that the term
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Hispanic had fallen out of favor among Hispanic, the Hispanic community.
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  Speaker 1: I knew that, I didn't understand why. And apparently it's
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: because Hispanic has been the longstanding term for the U. S.
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  Speaker 1: Census Bureau UM to describe people who are who um
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  Speaker 1: claim an origin or an identity that's associated typically with
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: either Spain or Latin America, Spanish speaking countries, UM or
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the or the Caribbean, something along those lines. Um. And
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: when you really start to dig into it, and you're like,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, this is the Census bureaus kind of
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: jumble definition. Yes it is, which again reinforces the idea
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  Speaker 1: that racial groups are not homogeneous groups. They're made of
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of different people. It just so happens that
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: there's a bunch of different people from a bunch of
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  Speaker 1: different backgrounds who claimed this kind of um, this the
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: same uh cultural identity. Yeah, And Professor Ortiz points out
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: with Hispanic, he said where he lived, Uh, he was
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: raised in California and Washington Stay. He said Hispanic wasn't
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: a popular term because of that, because he said the
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: elder and his elders in his community would say, you know,
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  Speaker 1: this is the government putting this name on us. But
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  Speaker 1: he said in Florida, he said, Hispanic as a term
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: was embraced by Floridians. So, like I said earlier at
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the very beginning, it depends on kind of who you
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: are and where you are, um as to kind of
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: what you prefer. And that brings us to a break,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: and we'll reveal the new mystery name that really isn't
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: a mystery because everyone already knows it by now. Right
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: after this to Chuck m okay, Chuck, what's the mystery name?
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: This is basically like an episode of the Masks singer
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, do you watch any of those? No,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: I'm just aware of it. Okay, they get really silly.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: They play those during football games. That's the only reason
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I know about them. The adds right, yeah, so and
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: announced the short stuff. But quickly there's a new one
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: that um I can't remember what it's called, but it's
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: basically judging whether or not you think a person can sing,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: just by looking at them and how they carry themselves.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: That's good, that's great, that's a that's a good lesson
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: to teach. People that you can judge a book by
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: its cover, right, and then they hand them a microphone.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: It's like, are they do they sing crappy or not?
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Then when they sing crappy, it suddenly turns into the
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Gong show. I'm sure, right, great idea, great idea. All right.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: So that brings us to the mystery word, which is uh.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: And there's a few ways you can pronounce it, depending
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: on who you are. Latin X is what I've always said.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: You can also say latin x or latin X. It
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: seems like and I think Webster Marriam Webster says ten x, right,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: so you're either basically saying it as one word or
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  Speaker 1: two words. Paul Ortiz says it as two words like
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: latin and then the letter X latin X. That's how. Yeah,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: that's how what I've always said too. And then somebody
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know who pointed out that it was that, no,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: you what other people pronounce it like latin x or
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: something like that rather than latino or latina latin X.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean the whole point of all this
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: is that, um, it's meant to be a gender neutral,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: totally inclusive word for people who identify as Latino, Latina, um, Hispanic, uh, Chicano,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: even um. However you identify that this is this big
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: encompassing word UM. There was a few uh survey that
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: was done that said traditionally, or at least now, most
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: people like you were saying, prefer to be identified as Guatemalan,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: or as Brazilian or as Haitian, um, wherever you're from.
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  Speaker 1: That that that your nation of origin is your you know,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: that's that's how you identify with. But there is a
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: growing group, especially younger American born English speaking people who
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: identify UM as what the Census Bureau would call Hispanic UM,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: that are adopting this term latin X or latin x
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: to be to make it more inclusive, which I think
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: is cool. Yeah, And as Ortisz puts it, he said,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: he kind of sees it as a bridge building term
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: to kind of unite people. Uh. And you know, it's
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: up to the individual what they prefer to be called.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: If you ask me, UM, I definitely see UM. How
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: referring to someone's country of origin can be a nice specificity,
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  Speaker 1: But I also see the value and people coming together
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  Speaker 1: as as a whole and saying, you know, we're a
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: big worldwide community and we are latin X, right, and
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: that's meant to Apparently Latino was also, um, it was
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: very widely used Hispanic Latino. Um. That was like a
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: transition word for sure, from from Hispanic to Latin X
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: or Latin X. Latino definitely made that that kind of
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  Speaker 1: bridge those two together. But apparently Latino came to be
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  Speaker 1: widely associated specifically with people who, um, whose country of
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: origin is Mexico. Right, And there's plenty of people from
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: other parts of Central and South America, UM who say, well,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I'm not from Mexico, so that one doesn't really apply
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  Speaker 1: to me, which is why latin x is um is
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: that bridge building term for a lot of people for
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: the time being, though it's it's got a lot of
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: ground to cover before it becomes widely used again. According
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: to Pew, Right, yeah, I think they did a survey
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: just this year. UM actually just says August very recently
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: that is it still actually who knows? I think is
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: now Eternal Damnation year, so it will be going on forever,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: so yes the answers, Yeah, yeah, it's been for seven
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: years now. And this survey said that about of Hispanics
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: have even heard the term. That surprised me. Um, and
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: only three percent use it. That kind of surprised me too.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's the circles I run in, but I've heard
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: it a lot more than that. Well. I think one
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: of the reasons why it seems like there's more people
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: who adopted is because the people who do use it
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: tend to be the most vocal on like social media,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the most present, the most. Um. Yeah, they're younger, Like,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: they're out there a lot more than say, like their
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: parents or grandparents or even older siblings. Um. Yeah, they're
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: out there for sure, so it would they have a
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: much larger voice proportions. They have a disproportionately large voice.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: How about that. Um. What I've seen is, uh, some
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: people are like, well, no, I prefer Latino or I
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: prefer Latina. Some people say, well, no, I'm totally down
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: with the gender neutral thing, but latina X that like
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  Speaker 1: X is kind of flies in the face of UM,
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  Speaker 1: Spanish as a tongue, So why don't we go with latina?
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: And with the accent? Is it? What's the accent called?
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: But with an accent over it? You know you've seen
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: it before. Um, So latina is gender neutral, but it's
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: also much more Spanish sounding where it's from the Spanish tongue.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: So maybe go with that. And I think everybody who's
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: already on board latin X has just just be quiet.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: We're going with Latin X. Yeah, it's totally cool, for sure,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: It's definitely got a cool term. But I remember also
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: when we did Our Kings in europ episode, we were
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: exclusively saying Latin X, I believe, and some people wrote
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: in and said, hey, you know, not everybody is down
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: with that in the Latino community or Latino community, and
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: it was good to be reminded of that that. Yes,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: when you're talking about entire groups of people, just remember
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: they don't all agree on everything, no matter whether they're white, Black,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Latin X, Hispanic, Asian, doesn't matter. They're all very different
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: people and we're all different when it comes down to it.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: We're all individuals, and uh, maybe that means we can
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: all get along a little better, yes, and at the
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: very least we can defer to them for goodness sake. Yeah,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: when you meet somebody who you would say, oh, this
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: person is of uh Latin next heritage, you could leave
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: it to them by saying it's really great to meet
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: someone of yeah, and then let them fill in the
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: in the blacks exactly. So there you go go forth
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: and think about things a little more and stop pigeonholing everybody. Okay, okay.
• 12:35
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• 12:40
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