Liberal actor John Leguizamo was panned after praising all the “beautiful Latinx faces” in the crowd at 94th annual academy awards on Sunday night. Look at all these beautiful faces out here, all these beautiful Latinx faces,” Leguizamo said, speaking to the Oscars audience. “We got great representation here tonight, people.”
The gender-neutral term “Latinx” has been overwhelmingly rejected by the Hispanic community, who prefer to be described as Latino or Hispanic. According to a Gallup Poll released last July, just 4% of Hispanic Americans wish to be referred to by the term. The same poll found that 23% prefer “Hispanic” while 15% prefer “Latino.” A further 57% responded with “does not matter” when asked for a preference in how they wish to be referenced.
“Most Hispanic Americans, too, are content with the use of multiple terms to describe their subgroup,” Gallup wrote. “Most favor ‘Hispanic,’ though many prefer ‘Latino,’ while few have adopted ‘Latinx’ as their preferred term.”
According to a poll from ICR-Miami for Americano Media, even Hispanic Democrats do not view the term favorably. The poll found that just 1.6 percent of Democrat Hispanics use the term “Latinx” to describe themselves, as well as only 1.5 percent of Republican Hispanics.
Unsurprisingly, Leguizamo using the “Latinx” descriptor received near unanimous mockery on social media.
https://twitter.com/GiancarloSopo/status/1508260448034033680
https://twitter.com/MattsIdeaShop/status/1508269366072299523
Leguizamo has long been a supporter of leftist causes and is a vocal Trump critic. In October 2020, the Columbian American actor said that Hispanics who support Trump are like “roaches for raid” during an interview with Bill Maher. “Latin people for Republicans are like roaches for raid, let’s just get real,” the actor said after Bill Maher made note of Trump’s growing support among Latino men. “I just feel like there’s a level of self-hate or just lack of care for the rest of your Latin brothers who are in cages, who are being demonized by the President,” he continued.
Donald Trump improved on his 2016 percentages in 78 of America’s 100 majority-Hispanic counties in the 2020 election.