Marvel Voices: Comunidades #1

[shakalooloo]

Two more pages. In a comment on my last post I used a term which I thought was alright, having seen it on the cover of this issue, and have been told that it's actually far from cool.

I'm happy to be educated on why it's not a great term to use, so here are two pages from the story in the issue which is what I based my judgement on:





Julion Anta, Enid Balám, Oren Junior and Federico Blee

Is Marvel being irresponsible in publishing this? Honest question, not being US-based and therefore being utterly ignorant of most of the conversation around this subject.

Comments

[donnblake]

I've been doing some reading on the question myself lately.

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/10/15/20914347/latin-latina-latino-latinx-means

Breaks down the reasons for and the problems with it- the creator of that comic eventually settles on Latine as an alternative. The 'further reading' at the bottom goes further into it.

A little googling does seem to suggest that writer Julio Anta uses the term fairly regularly, both to refer to himself and his intended audience, so that should probably enter into the conversation as well.

[alliterator]

Latinx is not an offensive term. It's not a term all Latina/Latino/Latine people agree upon, but it isn't offensive, therefore it shouldn't matter when someone uses it.

[lordy_co]

If you want to be gender neutral, use "latine". It's less grammatically wrong and, unlikey "latinx", it's actually pronounceable. I speak Portuguese and not Spanish, but the rules are pretty much the same.

[luxshine]

And even the "e" use is hotly debated as many, many latin-americans don't like change or even understand why it's necessary to have a discussion of neutral-gender terms in a language that is completely gendered to a ridiculous point. Personally, I hate the use of the X as a gender neutral because it IS impossible to pronounce and makes it sound as if we were an off-brand X-men team, and also hate the absurd notion that some people have that the masculine in spanish is neutral (no, it's not. It's just that "male" is the default for a lot of people), and while I find the use of the ending "E" a bit clunky while speaking, I will respect any non-binary or trans person who asks me to use it and will use it in their presence. (Full disclosure, Mexican here, living in Mexico City)

[lordy_co]

Yeah, here in Brazil it's become another topic in the "culture wars" that some politicians think they're fighting, but it's still a widly unknown business for the rest of the population, who are still struggling to understand what each letter on LGBTQ stands for. I also hate how most of the Romantic languages are gendered towards the masculine instead of having a true gender-neutral alternative, but I always try to use the "e" instead of "x" because, if we want its use to become more widespread, we can't ask people to use a form of speech that they can't even pronounce XD

[luxshine]

Oh, politicians always make it so cluncky. A former president used to do the "Boys and girls" version every time, and it always sounded horrible. And there was a movement to try to use the @ as the gender neutral option when writing? Like saying Amig@s instead of Amigos and Amigas and that was even worse because at least with the X you have SOME idea of how the letter is pronounced, but @? How the hell do you even begin with that?!

[giraffesforever]

There's a number of recent polls of the US Hispanic/Latino population that has showed "Latinx" to be somewhere be varying degrees of unknown, unpopular, and actively disliked.

Pew Research in 2020 (https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in-four-u-s-hispanics-have-heard-of-latinx-but-just-3-use-it/) had only 25% of the Hispanic population familiar with the term, 3% actually using it, 65% saying it should not be used to describe the Hispanic population, and 12% saying they disagreed/disliked it. I'm using "Hispanic" here, because that same poll found that to be the heavily preferred term, even among those who were familiar with "Latinx".

These preferences are essentially identical to those found by Gallup in a 2021 poll (https://news.gallup.com/poll/353000/no-preferred-racial-term-among-black-hispanic-adults.aspx) - if they had to choose a term, 57% chose Hispanic, 37% Latino, and 5% Latinx.

Last, a poll from just earlier this month (https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017d-81be-dee4-a5ff-efbe74ec0000) conducted on behalf of the US Democratic Party found essentially the same distribution of preferences (and that it was mostly independent of age, political alignment, and country of birth) and in addition found 40% were bothered or offended to some degree by "Latinx" (20% said "a lot") and 30% said they'd be less likely to support a person/organization that uses the term.

Take from those what you will, but I think it reasonable to say the term is at the least unpopular among those it is being applied to, and offensive/bothersome to some. Maybe these are growing pains for the term, or maybe it's destined to be superseded by something like "Latine".

[sadoeuphemist]

I think you are misstating these polls slightly. The Pew Research one says that 65% of 23% of respondents say that Latinx shouldn't be used - i.e., roughly 15% total. And both the Gallup and Politico polls indicate the majority have no particular preference at all - 57% in the Gallup poll say it doesn't matter to them which term is used, and 58% in Politico say they're not bothered by Latinx. The primary attitude seems to be indifference to the whole question.

[giraffesforever]

I absolutely missed that the 65% was only among those who had heard of the term, so thanks for catching that. Hard to imagine that many folks who hadn't heard of it would be in favor, but maybe there's some folks out there who would have a "I've been wanting something like this!" moment. And you have an excellent point that I had skipped ahead to the "if you had to choose" part of the survey, rather than the initial level of indifference you point out.

The Politico poll surprised me with the magnitude of people who said they didn't like the term, especially the 20% who said it bothered them a lot. Maybe that poll is an outlier that made too big an impression on me. Or maybe opinions on the term have grown stronger as it's been used more. Either way, thanks for the detail and thought!

[sadoeuphemist]

Yeah, some of the responses to the Politico poll seem unusually polarized to me. Pew Research tells us only 23% of respondents had even heard of the term Latinx, 7-8% for using it, ~15% not for it. Only 3% of the population actually describe themselves as such.

Politico shows similar rates of usage, slightly lower, 2%. So I have a hard time imagining there was a surge in awareness/popularity of the term between the two polls. And yet a later question shows that 15% of respondents say they'd be more likely to support a political entity that uses the term.

Take into account that just because someone is for 'Latinx', they might not be sufficiently impressed by a politician just using the word. So how did that number manage to hit 15%? It's weird.

[shadowpsykie]

why would this be irresponsible? it's an honest conversation that others have, and it is being handled honestly. they are even saying that no one needs to use the term if it doesn't work for them, but to essentially respect what others want them to.

[shakalooloo]

If Marvel were promoting the use of a term to describe a group of people that the majority of that group's members disapproved of, that would be irresponsible.

The term is the one they choose to use on the cover, irrespective of the discussion in this story within.

[luxshine]

Not to change the subject from the gender language discussion (Because yes, spanish IS gendered and that makes a lot of translations very hard to make, and the adaptation of a non-binary view of gender is an uphill battle in spanish), but Miles's use of "ahorita" as an example of language changes is... not good.
Ahorita is a diminutive form of Ahora, which means Now. YES, some spanish speakers use Ahorita to mean "I'll do it in a moment" (And there's a joke that in Mexico, Ahorita may mean anything from "right now" to "Before the year is over"), but that's a cultural slang situation. The word itself MEANS Right now. When we don't use it as that, it's sarcasm. It doesn't mean that the word has changed meaning or that it is THAT different from Puerto Rico to Venezuela (Since again, the word means "NOW", but usage and sarcasm may vary from person to person). So comparing that to the VERY serious situation of un-gendering a gendered language? Kinda dismissive IMHO.