You don't have to be Latino to find the latest substitute word for it, 'Latine,' put out there by wokester academia as an alternative to the very unpopular 'Latinx' just a little icky.

After all, what does it sound like? What can it be confused for? What can one little typo turn this identity politics term into? Why the heck is a new word needed at all?

But leave it to Axios to tell us the popularity of the woke new word is "surging":

"Latine," a gender-neutral way to describe or refer to people with Latino origins, is surging in popularity on university campuses, in museums, and among researchers and media.

The big picture: Catch-all terms like Hispanic or Latino have come under scrutiny for blurring important nuances and presenting a large part of the U.S. population as a monolith.

    Latine is "part of a movement centered on wanting to build and foster an inclusive community," says Carlos Zavala, vice president at consulting firm Whiteboard Advisors, which has used the term in reports from its work with tech and education groups.
    41% of U.S. Latinos in the latest Axios-Ipsos Latino poll in partnership with Noticias Telemundo say they are comfortable with Latine.

Flashback: The increased use of Latine comes as Latinx has been phased out by some organizations or banned by officials.

    Latinx had been pushed by U.S. academics as a gender-neutral option for Latinos but was criticized for using the letter "x" in a manner that's unnatural to Spanish speakers.

As with the term 'Latinx,' which was a colossal bust among real Latinos, there were some polls saying that young Latinos liked it. They liked it all right, because their professors liked it, but when it was time to come home from college to be with their real familias, they went back to 'Latino' before mamacita could get out the chancleta.

According to a 2021 Pew Research study:

A 2020 study based on interviews with 34 Latinx/a/o students from the US found that they "perceive higher education as a privileged space where they use the term Latinx. Once they return to their communities, they do not use the term".

Nobody wanted that, so Latino stuck.

But the social engineers from the left continued with their brainchild, which was to siphon out all gender references within the Spanish language into an English-style gender-neutral language, which only English and a few Nordic languages have. The idea this time was to accommodate transgender and nonbinary people of Latin American and Hispanic heritage.

Cultural imperialismo, anyone?

Axios noted that the leftists running Chile have already done it, but that isn't a great argument. Axios didn't bring up what the public approval ratings of these same leftists were, which in fact are very, very low and the group stands to get thrown out of power in the next election.

Axios, though, tweeted this and got ratioed by Latino and Latina of every kind:

"Latine," a gender-neutral way to describe or refer to people with Latino origins, is surging in popularity over terms like "Latinx" on university campuses, in museums, and among researchers and media.https://t.co/LeHMntZxrU

— Axios (@axios) April 11, 2024

Sure, the term is popular in academia, the media, and in museums. That's exactly the same people who liked the term 'Latinx,' the people of privilege who sought to still be victims of some kind. Most Latinos I know don't even like the term 'Latino.' Do Argentinians have in lot in common with Haitians? Not much. That's why most prefer to be called Argentinians or Argentinian-Americans, and Haitians and Haitian-Americans, same as Germans, Italians, and Irish people prefered to be called by those names as immigrant Americans rather than 'Europeans.' Lumping everyone together like that is obnoxious no matter what the region or time, as this essayist at NBC writes:

It’s no secret. We’ve spoken out repeatedly. Pew polling over nearly two decades consistently shows our preference. We want to be identified by our nationalities, each with individual histories, traditions, customs, languages and dialects. We are Mexican Americans, Colombians, Venezuelans, Salvadorans, Puerto Ricans, Brazilians, Hondurans and so on.

Axios is confident the term will catch on, though. I say 'no.' Any word that sounds like 'latrine' will go down like 'Latinx.'

Image: Twitter screen shot