Abstract
Through the act of making art and writing about it, the essay documents and expands on how Latinx is given meaning. The work draws upon personal experience and visual art research to consider observational strategies for sharing and shaping the perception of Latinx.
It began with a question, “What does Latinks mean?” Stopped in my tracks, I echoed the word one syllable at a time. La-tinks. As the hissing of the last sounds faded from my attempt to recreate the word, I reached for my smartphone, opened a search engine and asked, “How is it spelled?” As the letters were spoken, I typed l-a-t-i-n-x. While Google did not hesitate generating a bevy of links and suggestions to explain the word, I stumbled into a confused state where I could see the word but not formally communicate what I knew about it. I was consumed less by the meaning or the notoriety of Latinx than by the unexpected strangeness manifested by a different pronunciation of the word. When Latinx was spoken as Latinks and I questioned it, I made my understanding of the word visible. Momentarily, I saw, reflected through my discomfort from hearing Latinx said in a different way, a point of view that I took for granted. The “mispronunciation” reverberated boundaries to the written word’s authority, which is to communicate. For the case of Latinx, becoming more conscious and informed about how the term casually circulates as realized from hearing it spelled illustrated the difficulty encountered as one attempts to convey meaning for the originally asked question. I certainly could have responded offering a definition of Latinx, a gender-neutral term that is used in place of Latino, Latina, Latino/a, Latina/o, and Latin@, which was presumably what the asker requested.
However, neither myself nor the questioner had a shared articulation for the term. And as the adage goes, “the evidence spoke for itself.” Latinx was Latinks. In that moment, it acquired meaning from the local color of its immediate utterance. As such, I could not pass along that a year earlier I had encountered the term when a friend sent me information on a Latinx art conference. Or that without much fanfare the Latino commission for AIDS at the Centers for Disease Control as part of a national “Hispanic/Latino” community mobilization effort and social marketing campaign to raise HIV awareness, promotion of HIV testing, prevention, and education changed National Latino AIDS Awareness Day to National Latinx AIDS Awareness Day. The change was titular only. Or that Latinx was trending on social media due to controversy surrounding its usage at colleges and universities in the Northeast. And that my own confusion on seeing the term caused a similar exchange, except that when I asked, “Is Latinx a millennial thing?” My question was met with what I would characterize as Judge Judy attitude. “Oh my gawd, Weren’t you just in school. I thought you were a smart boy. Don’t you know anything about your privilege?” Recalling the way I felt after that confrontation, I prepared my insights regarding this new encounter with Latinx. I thought this will be easy because I have personal experience with this term. This will be easy because Google gave me the answer. In the ambient glow of my smartphone, I still hesitated responding. I could explain what Latinx meant. However, I was asked, “What does Latinks mean?”
Latinks informs how we know Latinx and affects how we know similar sounding and appearing things. The X critically changes how one says, sees, and understands formerly accepted Latin expressions. The generally acknowledged terms Latino, Latina, Latino/a, Latina/o, and Latin@ are shifted from “Latin” as an aural foreground to the background by way of the ingenious and blunt addition of the letter X. Its verbal texture distorts the established rhythm and sound of Latin in favor of eks making audible and consequently visible unseen bias created by the revised expression. For instance, straight edge, a substance-free lifestyle identified by X on the hands, may surface when discussing Latinx which in turn could percolate chatter about extreme suffering like X as a cross to bear or perchance an exchange regarding X as marking the spot on a map or errors in a composition. Indeed, Latinx uproots the former labels revealing how a deviation from those conventional terms triggers questions about origin, value, or location while also being a non-binary gender alternative expression. My point is not that Latinx is a term that activates and unsettles privileged gender expressions, but rather that Latinx exposes how unsettled expressions are because they rely on previously established knowledge. For that conversation when Latinx was pronounced “latinks,” Latinx was confusion and uncertainty. By exaggerating that encounter with the word, I am highlighting an observational strategy to reveal a relationship between the word and how it is given meaning.
Literary theorist Graham Allen (2001) states, “To interpret a painting or a building we inevitably rely on an ability to interpret that painting’s or building’s relationship to previous ‘languages’ or ‘systems’ of painting or architectural design” (pp. 169–170). Allen is saying that to apprehend a thing we relate that thing to similar things we already understand. It is the connections created between a new thing and our knowledge of previous things that expands the capacity to know the new and increase our perception of the old. As his point may pertain to an understanding of Latinx, Latinx and anything that sounds like “X” inform the meaning of Latinx and enrich all the things that are connected to comprehending Latinx. By taking up all of these meanings, Latinx makes itself available to any X user, where Latins and non-Latins can become a part of it. This approach is participatory. It is not a phenomenon that occurs in a single location or in a particular context. Latinx can be anything, and thus, it means nothing. A reader encountering Latinx in this way might perceive irreverence for the former terms that Latinx seemingly replaces. Nonetheless, it is the spontaneous connections generated by using Latinx that lift it to new meaning and appreciate different forms of inclusion for X users. Indeed, the value of this continuous replenishment hinges on the ability to see and comprehend the altered term as the thing it was before and after the changes. Latinx is simultaneously itself and not itself.
Strange as it may seem, the duality of Latinx functions on a fairly simple principle. The term only has meaning when it is linked by a user. You are informed of how I understand Latinx if I share with you the connections I use to understand Latinx for myself. For that reason, meaning for the term is open and constantly being revised. Every X user will configure Latinx uniquely. And every X user will join their Latinx knowledge with the other X users. The term requires meaning from exchange instead of isolation.
If I share exquisite corpse, a surrealist making technique, and extramission, a debunked theory of how vision works, Latinx moves into unpredictable territory. Perhaps historic ways of seeing and manipulating materials connect Latinx with the imagination and free associations caused by the X. What is Latinx-ray vision? Maybe it is the ability to see the disruptions of sound on the body? Or perhaps Latinx lends its self to the excavation of the bizarre. It emerges as a temporary looking glass squarely reflecting the evil eye. And as through a mirror, one looks and is looked at by oneself in that reflection.
To reach an understanding about the meaning Latinx acquires from surrealism and outdated visual theory, an X user’s network of meanings is tested. Am I able to see how new X words relate to my existing understanding of Latinx and all things X? To what extent do these encounters increase the dimensions of my Latinx chain of meaning? In other words, you perform a strength test to see how well the newly forged links of the chain are made and you intuitively retain the strongest and most meaningful. This performance, the testing of connections, is quick and instinctive.
And for those where the chain breaks or the X user chooses not to link Latinx to other things, the word and its meaning remain unchanged. Latinx will continue to do what words do. It will extend its formal definition to those that search for it. However, a multiplicity of Latinx meanings and the inclusive nature of variety will be out of reach for those persons. Latinx is part of a dynamic equation that locates meaning through relational exchange. And people are indisputably the agents that make participatory systems, like the accumulation of meaning for Latinx, work.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.