A group of Hispanic Democrats situated in the state of Connecticut has brought forth a bill seeking to ban the woke term “Latinx” from all communications within the state.
The bill was officially authored by a group of five Democratic members of the state House of Representatives, all of which sport a Hispanic descent. The bill was seemingly inspired, at least in part, by a move from Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders to officially ban the use of the term “Latinx” from the state government. The move also takes place because of the extreme and sweeping distaste for the word among those of Latino descent.
The text of the new bill states:
“[T]he general statutes [shall] be amended to prohibit any state agency, or state employee on behalf of a state agency, from using the term “Latinx” on any official communications or forms of the state agency.”
It was first brought to the floor by five members of the state house: state Reps. Geraldo C. Reyes, Christopher Rosario, Juan R. Candelaria, Robert Sanchez, and Minnie Gonzalez.
Reyes lambasted the word “Latinx” itself as a highly woke term that is very offensive to the sizeable Hispanic population of the Constitution State; close to 17.7% of the residents of the state are Hispanic, as reported by the Census Bureau. “I’m of Puerto Rican descent and I find it offensive,” explained Reyes to the Associated Press. “The Spanish language, which is centuries old, defaults to Latino for everybody. It’s all-inclusive. They didn’t need to create a word, it already exists.”
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders previously placed a ban on the offensive word from being used within any state documents back in January. “All state offices, departments, and agencies, unless granted an exemption by the Governor, shall review official documents of their respective entities regarding the use of the term ‘Latinx,’ ‘latinx,’ ‘Latinxs,’ or ‘latinxs’ in official state documents,” read the order from the Governor. It also ordered the agencies to identify any and all instances of the term within state documents, and within 60 days, take strides to replace all of them with a more correct term such as “Hispanic,” “Latino,” or “Latina.”
“This has been offensive and derogatory to all Puerto Ricans, and it’s something that hasn’t sat well with a lot of people here for a while.” expressed Reyes to CT Insider. “When I found out that Arkansas Gov. [Sanders] banned it on her first day in the office, I saw that as an opportunity for me to do the same thing.” Despite this, Reyes openly criticized the move from Sanders, claiming she sports “other motivations” for the ban on the word within Arkansas government documents.
