Hey, and welcome to Short Stuff.

I'm Josh and there's Chuck, and we are the short Stouffer's who are going to talk to you about a new term for the Latino community, Latino community. See, here's the reason for a new term. Yes. So I remember when we did our episode on Zoot Suits. Yeah, there was you know, we always try to keep up with the latest correct terminology that people want to be called. Sure, because people get to decide themselves what they want to be called.

And I think at the time there were references to a word Chicano. Is that right? Did we do that? Did we say that? Well, we did, but we also said it in context of that's what they were called at the time. OK, and here's the thing. Depending on who you are, where you are and when you are, these terms have been sort of interchangeable to some people. Some of these terms have been in fashion and then out of fashion, perhaps maybe offensive or not offensive or maybe pride wrapped around a term that other people might think might be offensive.

Yeah, and what's interesting is some of those terms of transition through all those things over time and geography to and to know all that Chuck, is to really remember be reminded that, you know, when you consider entire racial groups, we tend to think of them as like one collective whole that share all the same similarities and have zero differences. And this this is a very important reminder that no different people consider themselves different things, even within certain racial groups, and then take it one step even further and say, oh, well, that would suggest that racial groups are actually a social and cultural construct, not a biological construct.

And then you finally arrived at the right frame of mind to be a human being.

That's right. I mean, technically, if you really always want to honor a person and do the right thing, you call someone Mexican or Colombian or Honduran or Guatemalan and get very Spanish and get very specific with the country that they come from. But we as humans like to put a collective name on groups of people. That's just what we've always done in the 50s. And a lot of this stuff comes from this HowStuffWorks article and a historian named Paul Ortiz, who is a professor at the University of Florida, which we won't hold against him, but he points out that in the 50s and even before that, Chicano was a term of derision.

Yeah, but then it was kind of adopted and became a term of pride with the rise of a few things, a Mexican student movement in California, the farmworkers movement. And people said, you know what, Chicano is a term of pride, term of self-respect. And he likened it to African-American and the term black, how the term black or blacks wasn't very favored for a long time. And then in the civil rights movement, they said, no, black is beautiful.

That's who we are. And that's what we are.

Yeah. I mean, like, what better way to to deflate the power out of a word that's used against you than to take it on yourself and use it as a as a name of pride. I mean, that's what podcasters.

Right. Right. Which has always been a term of scorn for the outside world. But that's right. We're taking it on with pride. So, yeah. So a lot when we were growing up, Chuck Hispanic was always the term, I mean, virtually until just a few years ago, Hispanic. But as time wore on, it went from, you know, those are Hispanic people to those are Hispanic people. And you just kind of got this idea that the term Hispanic had fallen out of favor among Hispanic the Hispanic community.

I knew that. I didn't understand why. And apparently it's because Hispanic has been the long standing term for the U.S. Census Bureau to describe people who are who claim a origin or an identity that's associated typically with either Spain or Latin America, Spanish speaking countries or the or the Caribbean, something along those lines. And when you really start to dig into it, you're like, wait a minute, this is the Census Bureau's kind of jumbled definition. Yes, it is.

Which again, reinforces the idea that racial groups are not homogenous groups. They're made of a bunch of different people. It just so happens that there's a bunch of different people from a bunch of different backgrounds who claim this kind of the same cultural identity.

Yeah, and Professor Ortiz points out with Hispanic, he said where he lived, he was raised in California and Washington state. He said Hispanic was. A popular term because of that, because he said the elder and his elders in his community would say, no, this is the government putting this name on us. But he said in Florida, he said Hispanic as a term was embraced by Floridians. Right. So like I said earlier at the very beginning, it depends on kind of who you are and where you are as to kind of what you prefer.

And that brings us to a break. And we'll reveal the new mystery name that really isn't a mystery because everyone already knows it by now. Right after this, John. Chuck. On this season of unobscured with experts to guide us, we will go back to the streets of Victorian White Whitechapel to follow the trail of Jack the Ripper. For almost 100 years, the police files from that investigation were sealed behind closed doors. Plenty of time for the legend to grow will join the police in their attempts to solve a series of brazen and brutal murders.

We'll see through the eyes of London's East Enders as they try to make sense of the violence taking place right in their midst. And we'll explore the alleys, yards and homes where a series of monstrous murders became the most infamous true crime story of modern history. Unobscured Season three premieres on Wednesday, October 7th. Subscribe today on Apple podcasts, I heart radio or wherever you listen to podcasts.

OK, Chuck, what's the mystery name? This is basically like an episode of the masked singer. Oh, my gosh. Do you watch any of those? No, I'm just aware of it. OK, they get really silly. They play those during football games. That's the only reason I know about them. The ads. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. So and I know the short stuff. But quickly, there's a new one that I can't remember what it's called, but it's basically judging whether or not you think a person can sing just by looking at them and how they carry themselves.

That's good. That's great. That's a that's a good lesson to teach people that you can judge a book by its cover. Right. And then they hand him a microphone. It's like, are they do they sing crappy or not write?

And then when they sing crappy, it suddenly turns into The Gong Show, I'm sure. Right. Great idea. Great idea. All right. So that brings us to the mystery word, which is and there's a few ways you can pronounce it depending on who you are. Latin X is what I've always said. You can also say Latin X or Latin X, it seems like. And I think Webster. Merriam Webster says LA Tenex.

Right. So you're either basically saying it as one word or two words. Paula Ortiz says it is two words like Latin and then the letter X, Latin X. That's what I always said. Yeah, that's what I've always said to you. And then somebody I don't know who pointed out that it was that. No. Well, other people pronounce it like Latin X or something like that rather than Latino or Latina Latin X.

And that's the explanation. Yeah. I mean, the whole point of all this is that it's meant to be a gender neutral, totally inclusive word for people who identify as Latino, Latina, Hispanic, Chicano, even however you identify that this is this big encompassing word. There is a Pew survey that was done that said traditionally or at least now, most people, like you were saying, prefer to be identified as Guatemalan or as Brazilian or as Haitian, wherever you're from, that that your nation of origin is your you know, that's that's how you identify with.

But there is a growing group, especially younger American born, English speaking people who identify as what the Census Bureau would call Hispanic, that are adopting this term Latin X or Latin next to be to make it more inclusive, which I think is cool. Yeah.

And as Ortiz puts it, he said he kind of sees it as a bridge building term to kind of unite people. And, you know, it's up to the individual what they prefer to be called, if you ask me. I definitely see how referring to someone's country of origin can be a nice specificity. But I also see the value in people coming together as a whole and saying, you know, we're a big worldwide community and we are Latin X.

Right. And that's meant to apparently the Latino was also it was very widely used, Hispanic, Latino. That was like a transition word for sure from from Hispanic to Latin or Latin X Latino definitely made that that kind of bridged those two together. But apparently Latino came to be widely associated specifically with people who whose country of origin is Mexico. Right. And there's plenty of people from other parts of Central and South America who say, well, I'm not from Mexico.

So that one doesn't really apply to me, which is why Latin X is is that bridge building term for a lot of people. For the time being, though, it's got a lot of ground to cover before it becomes widely used again, according to Pew. Right.

Yeah, I think they did a survey just this year, actually, just as August. So very recently. That is it. Still twenty twenty actually. Who knows. I think twenty twenty is now eternal damnation years. So it will be going on forever. All right. So yes, the answer is yes. Yeah. It's been twenty, twenty four, seven years now. And this survey said that about 23 percent of Hispanics have even heard the term that surprised me and only three percent use it.

That kind of surprised me, too. Maybe it's the circles I run in, but I've heard it a lot more than that.

Well, I think one of the reasons why it seems like there's more people who would adopt is because the people who do use it tend to be the most vocal, unlike social media, the most present, the most. Yeah, they're younger. Like they're out there a lot more than they like their parents or grandparents or even older siblings. Yeah, they're out there for sure. So would they have a much larger voice proportion? They have a disproportionately large voice.

How about that? Um, what I've seen is some people are like, well, no, I prefer Latino or I prefer Latina. Some people say, well, no, I'm totally down with the gender neutral thing, but Latina looks like X just kind of flies in the face of. Spanish is the tongue, so why don't we go with Retin-A and E with the accent, is it what's the accent called? I don't know, but with an accent over it.

Yeah, you've seen it before. I have. So Latina is gender neutral, but it's also much more Spanish sounding from the Spanish tongue. So maybe go with that. And I think everybody who's already on board next says just be quiet or we're to Latin X.

X is cool. Yeah, it's totally cool for sure. Definitely got a cool term. But I remember also when we did our kids in Europe, so we were exclusively saying Latin X I believe, and some people wrote in and said, hey, you know, not everybody is down with that in the Latino community or Latino community. And it was good to be reminded of that. But yes, when you're talking about entire groups of people, just remember they don't all agree on everything, no matter whether they're white, black or Latino or Hispanic, Asian doesn't matter.

They're all very different people and we're all different when it comes down to it. We're all individuals. And maybe that means we can all get along a little better. Yes.

And at the very least, we can defer to them, for goodness sakes. Yeah. When you meet somebody who you would say, oh, this person is of Latino heritage, you could leave it to them by saying it's really great to meet someone of. Yeah, they'll let them fill in the blanks.

Exactly. So there you go. Go forth and think about things a little more and stop pigeonholing everybody. OK, ok. Short stuff then is out. Stuff you should know is a production of radios HowStuffWorks for more podcasts, My Heart Radio, is it the radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows?