A few days ago, a group of friends and I were talking about Hispanic Heritage Month, which begins each year on Sept. 15. At some point, someone tossed out what seemed like a simple question: How do we identify ourselves? As Hispanic, Latino or Latinx?
The answers were as varied as they were predictable. Some preferred the term “Latino.” Others said “Hispanic” was perfectly fine. A few rejected both labels altogether and identified simply as Mexican, Salvadoran, Colombian or Puerto Rican. No one seemed completely satisfied with any of the categories, but we all agreed on one thing: before any label created in Washington, the media or academia, there was the identity tied to the country we came from.
The conversation soon drifted into a deeper discussion about who gets to decide what we should call ourselves. Because behind each of these words lies a history that rarely shows up on government forms, in advertising campaigns or in political speeches. These are not neutral terms. They are labels
To understand the controversy, it helps to go back to the origins of all three.
From the outset, it is worth noting that none of them emerged organically from the communities they were meant to describe. As harmless as they may seem, each carries political, cultural and historical baggage.
The Hispanic category
The term Hispanic is probably the oldest of the three. Its roots go back to Hispania, the name the Romans gave to the Iberian Peninsula more than 2,000 years ago. Yet its modern use in the United States is relatively recent.
For decades, the federal government relied on a patchwork of classifications to categorize people of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban and broader Latin American origin. It was not until the 1970s that Washington officially adopted the term “Hispanic” as a single statistical category for a rapidly growing and diverse population.
The choice was not accidental. “Hispanic” emphasizes a connection to the Spanish language and, by extension, Spain’s cultural legacy. For some, the term offers a practical shared identity rooted in language. For others, it tells only part of the story. After all, it defines millions of people through the lens of Spanish colonial history while often overshadowing the Indigenous, African and mixed-race roots that are equally central to Latin America’s identity.
So are we Latino?
Partly in response to those limitations, the term Latino gained traction.
While the concept dates back to the 19th century, it became widely used in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s. The shift moved the focus away from Spain and toward Latin America itself. A Brazilian, for example, could identify as Latino despite not speaking Spanish. Identity became tied to a geographic and cultural region rather than exclusively to language.
Even so, the term came with its own challenges.
Placing an Argentine immigrant from Buenos Aires, a Mixtec family from Oaxaca, a Cuban from Miami and an Afro-Colombian from Cali under a single label inevitably glosses over profound differences in history, race, class and migration experiences. Over time, “Latino” became a useful category for politics, marketing and demographic research, but often an imperfect one when applied to real life.
The arrival of inclusive language
Then came Latinx.
The term began circulating in academic and activist circles during the early 21st century. Its purpose was to offer a gender-inclusive alternative to “Latino” and “Latina,” avoiding the gender distinctions built into Spanish grammar. The “x” was intended to include nonbinary individuals and challenge traditional linguistic structures.
What followed was one of the most intense cultural debates in recent years within communities of Latin American origin in the United States.
Supporters view Latinx as a natural evolution of language and a tool for greater inclusion. Critics argue that the term is difficult to pronounce in Spanish, disconnected from everyday speech and largely promoted from university and political circles rather than from within the broader community itself.
Polling consistently shows that most people the term is intended to describe do not use it. Even so, the debate has exposed a larger question: Who has the authority to name a community as diverse as this one?
More than a label
Perhaps that is why the conversation with my friends ended where it began.
There were disagreements over Hispanic, Latino and Latinx. But when someone asked again who we were, no one answered with a bureaucratic label. Instead, the responses came naturally: Mexican, Guatemalan, Salvadorian and other countries our ancestors came from.
That may be the paradox of these terms. They were created to bring many identities together under a single category. Yet the more closely we examine them, the clearer it becomes that none fully captures the complexity of the people they are supposed to describe.
Because before we are Hispanic, Latino or Latinx, most of us remain something more specific, more deeply rooted and perhaps much harder to classify: the place we come from and the history we carry with us.
Alejandro Maciel is the bilingual audience producer and reporter for Tiempos de San Diego, a service of Times of San Diego on WhatsApp.
