Last week saw the end of Hispanic Heritage Month in the US, a period meant to celebrate the Latino population through a series of countrywide cultural events. New York was, predictably, a hub of activity, and its Feria Internacional del Libro a clear highlight: held virtually in early October, it brought together Hispanic/Latino authors, editors, and critics for talks on craft, industry, and politics. Across several panels, one question seemed to loom large: what do we even mean when we use terms like “Hispanic,” “Latino,” or the more recent “Latinx”? In this brief hybrid piece (half essay, half dispatch), Editor-at-Large Josefina Massot gives us panelists’ take on the issue—and a bit of her own.
I’ve always mistrusted self-touted “movements,” and never more so than now: in the age of the hashtag, most won’t make it past their first bout of virality. My skepticism peaks each time a movement calls itself a “boom”; the lady doth protest too much, I think, and scoff away my irritation. These days, though, I find myself believing in the #NewLatinoBoom. I’m biased, of course: as an Argentine clumping her way through US literary soil, it’s in my interest to believe. Still, the data seem to back me up.
The landscape of Hispanic letters in America has never been lusher: Spanish-speaking writers are earning MFAs, publishing in dozens of magazines and presses, and showcasing their work at a growing number of festivals—key among them, Miami’s, Chicago’s, and (more on this shortly) New York’s. It makes sense: over 60 million Americans identify as Hispanic/Latino, and roughly 40 million are native Spanish speakers; that puts the US roughly on par with top-ranking Colombia, Spain, and Argentina (Mexico comfortably takes the lead).
When I tuned in to the Feria Internacional del Libro de la Ciudad de Nueva York (FILNYC) a couple of weeks ago, I expected my newfound faith to be stoked. I was going to hear from famed author Cristina Rivera Garza, head of the country’s first PhD in Spanish creative writing; reporter Annie Correal would discuss some of her hard-hitting pieces on Latino immigration for The New York Times; author Paola Ramos would tackle her acclaimed essay collection, Finding LatinX; and a series of savvy press reps from across the country would swap industry secrets.
While much of this did happen, it wasn’t quite so rosy. Tremendous progress has been made in the field of Hispanic/Latino literature, folks agreed, but the road ahead is long and paved with challenges.
Editor Fernando Olszansky of Chicago’s Ars Communis put it this way: the main issue for presses such as his is not a current lack of writers but a lack of readers—or, more to the point, a lack of clarity regarding who these readers are. Freshly arrived Hispanic immigrants can’t prioritize reading, he explained, since they have other pressing needs. “If you go by Maslow ‘s Hierarchy, you first have to take care of food, a home, etc., and culture comes at the very end.” According to Maria Angélica García of New York’s Sudaquia, there’s another type of immigrant, and it proves just as tricky to engage: “those who may have the education and desire to read in Spanish but are typically bilingual and therefore also drawn to literature in English”, which is much more widespread and hard to compete with.
To ensure their future, said Suburbano’s Pedro Medina, small presses must know exactly who to target. “We should share data among ourselves,” he proposed—data on who is purchasing which books, including their age bracket, place of origin, current residence, etc. Olszansky agreed, adding that he’s tried to hone in on schools and universities because “they’re the ones in charge of molding future readers.” Two smart steps towards subsistence in largely unchartered territory.
Knowing Hispanic/Latino readers requires knowing Hispanic/Latinos at large. This, it turns out, is surprisingly difficult. The very terms at play are problematic. “Hispanic” refers to people tracing their origins back to Spain; it ignores those who lived in the Americas prior to Spanish colonization—indigenous and Afro-Latino communities who fought against imperialism. “Latino” avoids this problem but creates a new one: it’s a gendered word that, for many, excludes female, trans, and non-binary individuals. Cue “Latinx,” a term now largely espoused by American academics and younger Hispanic/Latino generations as a means of sidestepping both issues.
Some would call its champions rather precious. As Rivera Garza put it, though, “language is laden with history, and therefore with conflict. It has not only an aesthetic but an ethical, political component. We must critically assess how we move from lived experience to the written word.” Those who advocate for more inclusive terms are, I think, warranted in their cause. Still, it’s worth asking whether their solution matches their intentions: does “Latinx” bridge the gap between Latino life and language?
Despite adopting the term for the sake of inclusivity, Ramos granted that “Latinos don’t have a single voice. We’re very different . . . [T]here are more than three million Afro Latinos, hundreds of thousands of indigenous Latinos; there are queer Latinos, bilingual Latinos, progressive and conservative Latinos. We’re also the country’s youngest population: six out of ten Latinos are Millennials or younger, so generational differences are huge.”
Fellow panelist Eduardo Porter agreed. Latinos don’t exist outside of the US, he said; they begin to exist once they cross the border and enter the orbit of the Census Bureau, which must define them in some way for demographic purposes. The truth is, however, that “Cubans in Miami are completely different from Mexicans in L.A. . . . or Puerto Ricans in New York.” The same could be said of the border they’ve crossed: Tijuana-based author Daniel Salinas Basave lyrically described the region as “a great whirlwind of souls . . . a stream fed by many rivers.” The issue is that, like “border,” “Latinx” expresses an abstraction; it fails to capture intracommunal differences. While it yields inclusion, it doesn’t do away with ambiguity—if anything, the “x” (a universal symbol of uncertainty) brings it further to the fore.
How, then, shall Hispanic/Latino readers be understood and served? Apropos of something else, Correal gave what seemed to me a possible answer: “I try to look for profoundly personal stories,” she said of her work for NYT. “I’ve learned . . . that speaking in general terms about ‘big’ social issues like poverty or the pandemic’s impact on Hispanic immigrants doesn’t appeal that much to readers . . . If you pick one person to represent the group you wish to write about . . . you’ll get a much better response.” Likewise, when talking about the border, Salinas Basave stressed the importance of telling complex, individual stories in order to avoid reductionist stereotypes.
Perhaps the key, then, is not to swap one letter for another at the end of a hot-button word, but to put more varied words down on the page—to bridge the gap between language and Latino lives one at a time, in all their blazing singularity.
Quotes translated from the Spanish by the author.
Image source: FILNYC website.
Josefina Massot is a freelance writer, editor, and translator from Buenos Aires, Argentina. She studied Philosophy at Stanford University and worked for Cabinet Magazine and Lapham’s Quarterly in New York City, where she later served as a foreign correspondent for Argentine newspapers La Nueva and Perfil. She is Asymptote’s editor-at-large for the US, having previously contributed to the journal as an assistant managing editor and editor of the blog.
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