Alternate term for 'Latino' gaining ground on campus is 'clapping back at whiteness,' prof declares

The term "Latinx" — which is “finding its way through the academy” through the efforts of “queer millennials” — is "clapping back at whiteness," a professor declared at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the student newspaper reported.

Nicole Guidotti-Hernández — an associate professor of American studies and Mexican American and Latino/a studies at the University of Texas at Austin — said at a Dickinson event earlier this month that "Latinx" as an alternate for "Latino" got traction on social media as a "protest," the Dickensonian said.

What's with the 'x' in 'Latinx'?

Guidotti-Hernández — whose research includes "transnational feminist methodologies, Latinx studies and popular culture and immigration" — revealed that the “x” in "Latinx" is “an expression of freedom” by “millennials ... trying to understand history as brown-ly, blackly, queerly [and] trans-ly as possible," the paper said.

She also said "Latinx" can reference “race yoked with gender fluidity” while combating white “homonormativity” by “trying to dismantle the whiteness of queerness," the Dickinsonian reported.

The professor's summary?

"Latinx" is “clapping back at whiteness," Guidotti-Hernández said, according to the paper.

What did she say about 'gendered' Spanish pronouns?

The professor also discussed "gendered" Spanish pronouns and advocated for the gender-neutral Spanish pronoun “dey," the Dickinsonian reported.

(H/T: The College Fix)