라틴엑스(Latinx) 개념의 등장과 몇 가지 쟁점들

The Emergence of the Latinx Concept and Several Issues

In recent years, instead of the terms Latino and Hispanic, the term Latinx has been spreading. According to Google Trend, an analysis tool that tracks the frequency of entering certain search terms in Google search engines, Latinx was included in the most searched words in the United States in 2016. However, as revealed in a recent Pew Research survey, this word is not popularly used. Even within the Latino group, a small number of people use this word, mainly in LGBT groups, academia, and cyberspace. As such, the use of Latinx, a new term, has increased to the extent that it is included in the dictionary, but it is still used mainly by academia or specific groups rather than the public. There is a considerable gap between the public and a specific group over the term Latinx, which claims gender inclusion, and there is a lot of controversy over this term. As the frequency of using Latinx increases, conflicts between positions in favor of and against the term continue. Despite this controversy, however, the emergence of Latinx shows that there is a demand to express a new identity that is not included in the category of Latino or Hispanic. The emergence of the new term Latinx means a change surrounding the identity of the Latino group. The Latinx can be seen from the perspective of changes in epidemiological relations within Latino group or cracks in Latino identity. In this article, I would like to briefly summarize the historical context in which Latinx emerged and the debate surrounding the term and examine the usefulness of this concept.