Sobre Los Hispanohablantes
“The term “Latin” was invented by Michel Chevalier in the 1830s as the groundwork for French Imperialism in the New World. Trying to overcome linguistic gender in a Romance Language strikes me as a similar form of Imperalism, albeit this time from well meaning, but generally monolingual Identity Focused Progressives. Never forget — Dracula was a Latino too!”
My quote for the NYT. I’d further add I personally think “Latinx” falls from the mouths of the same wide voweled Austin white ladies who didn’t get the problem with the phrase “authentic street tacos”.
I understand that the issue is with the inherent masculinization of “Latino” as a group. I get that. Just say “Latins”. But that’s an Identity Politics trap because then you have the larger problem that the category “Latin” includes the French, Spanish, Italians, Portuguese, Romanians, and every bitch-assed little dialect from Piedmontese to Rhaeto-Romansch. Once you realize the word “Latin” is pretty much completely arbitrary, getting mad at “Latino/a/x” is as silly as refusing to eat hard shell tacos.
The complete and total lack of education that well meaning Anglos have about Spain and the New World is so bad as to be laughable. Most liberals don’t know shit about El Mundo Hispanohablante, are stuck behind the filter known as “La Leyenda Negra.”, and resemble cultural Golden Retrievers — happy to play fetch, but no idea what they’re fetching.
As I’ve stated a 1000 times before, for me learning Spanish and living in Mexico was actually pretty easy because it explained a whole bunch of cultural shit about being Catholic that I never understood as a child, but was just part of the air growing up Catholic in Texas.
PS. As my dad used to joke “PUT THAT CONVERT DOWN!!! YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE IT’S BEEN!!!”
ROSS DOUTHAT IS A TOOL.
