About One-In-Four U.S. Hispanics Have Heard of Latinx, but Just 3% Use It
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FOR RELEASE AUGUST 11, 2020 About One-in-Four U.S. Hispanics Have Heard of Latinx, but Just 3% Use It Young Hispanic women among the most likely to use the term BY Luis Noe-Bustamante, Lauren Mora and Mark Hugo Lopez FOR MEDIA OR OTHER INQUIRIES: Mark Hugo Lopez, Director, Global Migration and Demography Research Tanya Arditi, Communications Manager 202.419.4372 www.pewresearch.org RECOMMENDED CITATION Pew Research Center, August, 2020 “About One-in-Four U.S. Hispanics Have Heard of Latinx, but Just 3% Use It” 1 PEW RESEARCH CENTER About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research. It studies U.S. politics and policy; journalism and media; internet, science and technology; religion and public life; Hispanic trends; global attitudes and trends; and U.S. social and demographic trends. All of the Center’s reports are available at www.pewresearch.org. Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. © Pew Research Center 2020 www.pewresearch.org 2 PEW RESEARCH CENTER How we did this For this analysis we surveyed 3,030 U.S. Hispanic adults in December 2019 as part of the 2019 National Survey of Latinos. We asked survey respondents about their awareness of the term Latinx and their views of the term. The sample includes 2,094 Hispanic adults who were members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. It also includes an oversample of 936 respondents sampled from Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel, another online survey panel also recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. For the purposes of this report, references to foreign-born Hispanics include those born in Puerto Rico. Individuals born in Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens by birth. The survey was conducted in both English and Spanish. See the Methodology section of this report for more details. www.pewresearch.org 3 PEW RESEARCH CENTER Table of contents About Pew Research Center 1 How we did this 2 Table of contents 3 Terminology 4 About One-in-Four U.S. Hispanics Have Heard of Latinx but Just 3% Use It 5 Google searches for Latinx rising in U.S., but trail far behind Latina, Latino and Hispanic 8 Should Latinx be adopted as a pan-ethnic term for U.S. Hispanics? 10 In their own words: What does Latinx mean to Hispanics? 11 1. How widespread is awareness of Latinx? 12 2. Who uses Latinx? 15 3. Views on Latinx as a pan-ethnic term for U.S. Hispanics 17 Acknowledgments 19 www.pewresearch.org 4 PEW RESEARCH CENTER Terminology The terms Hispanic and Latino are used interchangeably in this report. Latinx is a term used to describe people who are of or relate to Latin American origin or descent. It is a gender-neutral or nonbinary alternative to Latino or Latina. U.S. born refers to persons born in the United States and those born in other countries to parents at least one of whom was a U.S. citizen. Foreign born refers to persons born outside of the United States to parents neither of whom was a U.S. citizen. The terms foreign born and immigrant are used interchangeably in this report. For the purposes of this report, foreign born also includes those born in Puerto Rico. Although individuals born in Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens by birth, they are included among the foreign born for this report because they are born into a Spanish-dominant culture and because on many points their attitudes, views and beliefs are much closer to Hispanics born abroad than to Hispanics born in the 50 states or the District of Columbia, even those who identify themselves as being of Puerto Rican origin. Second generation refers to people born in the 50 states or the District of Columbia with at least one first-generation, or immigrant, parent. Third and higher generation refers to people born in the 50 states or the District of Columbia with both parents born in the 50 states or the District of Columbia. Language dominance is a composite measure based on self-described assessments of speaking and reading abilities. Spanish-dominant people are more proficient in Spanish than in English (i.e., they speak and read Spanish “very well” or “pretty well” but rate their English-speaking and reading ability lower). Bilingual refers to people who are proficient in both English and Spanish. English-dominant people are more proficient in English than in Spanish. www.pewresearch.org 5 PEW RESEARCH CENTER About One-in-Four U.S. Hispanics Have Heard of Latinx, but Just 3% Use It Young Hispanic women among most likely to use the term Pan-ethnic labels describing the U.S. population of people tracing their roots to Latin Most Latino adults have not heard of America and Spain have been introduced over the term Latinx; few use it the decades, rising and falling in popularity. % who … Today, the two dominant labels in use are Have heard of Hispanic and Latino, with origins in the 1970s Use Latinx Latinx 3% and 1990s respectively. Do not More recently, a new, gender-neutral pan- use Latinx ethnic label, Latinx, has emerged as an 20% alternative that is used by some news and entertainment outlets, corporations, local governments and universities to describe the Have not heard of Latinx nation’s Hispanic population. 76% However, for the population it is meant to describe, only 23% of U.S. adults who self- Note: No answer responses not shown. identify as Hispanic or Latino have heard of the Source: Survey of U.S. Latino adults conducted Dec. 3-23, 2019. “About One-in-Four U.S. Hispanics Have Heard of Latinx, but Just 3% term Latinx, and just 3% say they use it to Use It” describe themselves, according to a nationally PEW RESEARCH CENTER representative, bilingual survey of U.S. Hispanic adults conducted in December 2019 by Pew Research Center. The emergence of Latinx coincides with a global movement to introduce gender-neutral nouns and pronouns into many languages whose grammar has traditionally used male or female constructions. In the United States, the first uses of Latinx appeared more than a decade ago. It was added to a widely used English dictionary in 2018, reflecting its greater use. www.pewresearch.org 6 PEW RESEARCH CENTER Yet the use of Latinx is not common practice, and the term’s emergence has generated debate about its appropriateness in a gendered language like Spanish. Some critics point to its origins among U.S. English speakers, saying it ignores the Spanish language and its gendered form.1 Still, there are examples of the term’s use in Spanish in the U.S. and abroad.2 Meanwhile, others see Latinx as a gender- and LGBTQ-inclusive term, reflecting a broader movement within the U.S. around gender identity. 1 Masculine and feminine nouns are traditionally used in gendered languages. For example, “friends” in Spanish is translated to the gendered “amigos” when referring to masculine friends and “amigas” when referring to feminine friends, and the masculine “amigos” has traditionally been used when referring to a mixed gender group of friends. 2 In Latin America, there are also examples of the use of “e” as a gender-neutral replacement in Spanish for “a” and “o” in the ending of words that refer to groups of people – for example, using the gender-neutral “todes” in place of the gendered “todos” and “todas.” www.pewresearch.org 7 PEW RESEARCH CENTER While only about a quarter of U.S. Hispanics Young adults, college graduates some say they have heard the term Latinx, awareness of most likely to have heard of Latinx and use vary across different subgroups. Young % who … Hispanics, ages 18 to 29, are among the most Heard of Latinx Use Latinx likely to have heard of the term – 42% say they All 23% have heard of it, compared with 7% of those 3 ages 65 or older. Hispanics with college 24 experience are more likely to be aware of Latinx Women 5 22 than those without college experience; about Men 1 four-in-ten Hispanic college graduates (38%) Ages 18-29 42 say they have heard of Latinx, as do 31% of 7 those with some college experience. By 19 30-49 2 comparison, just 14% of those with a high 50-64 15 2 school diploma or less are aware of the term. 65+ 7 <0.5 In addition, the U.S. born are more likely than Foreign born 16 the foreign born to have heard the term (32% 2 32 vs. 16%), and Hispanics who are predominantly U.S. born 4 English speakers or bilingual are more likely 14 than those who mainly speak Spanish to say the H.S. graduate or less 2 same (29% for both vs. 7%). 31 Some college 5 38 College graduate+ 5 Hispanics who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party are more likely to have heard English dominant 29 of Latinx than those who identify with or lean 3 Bilingual 29 toward the Republican Party (29% vs. 16%). 4 7 Spanish dominant 2 Awareness of the term Latinx does not 16 necessarily translate into use. Across many Republican/Lean Rep 1 29 demographic subgroups, the share of Hispanics Democrat/Lean Dem 4 who say they use Latinx to describe their own identity is significantly lower than the share Note: “Some college” includes those with an associate degree and those who attended college but did not obtain a degree.