The current reality of the US demographics is that 100% of population growth is diverse and in two decades Hispanics, Latinos, and LatinX will be majority-minority, while 8 of the 10 largest cities in America already have reached this tipping point. Therefore, after a decade of impacting the strategies and marketing of over a dozen Fortune 100 companies, Cien+ and CulturIntel have codified how cultural intelligence can be activated as a business superpower and drive acceleration growth and “purposeful profits” from the inside out.
Hispanics, Latinos, and LatinX play a stellar role in the present and future economic, demographic and cultural growth of the US and the most recent CulturIntel study reveals more than 762,000 data points where this segment of the population manifests how they think and feel about being called the term “LatinX”.
Before we see the numbers, it is important to establish the difference between the 3 words. Though they're often used interchangeably, "Hispanic" is used to describe people from Spanish-speaking countries, which includes Latin America and Spain. "Latino" refers to people with roots in Latin America, which includes Portuguese-speaking Brazilians, but excludes Spain. "Latinx" is a term that has emerged in recent years. Merrian-Webster included the word in 2018. It is used as a neutral word that describes people of Latin American descent without revealing their gender.
Since 2018 many politicians, corporations, industries, and other professional organizations have opted for using the term “LatinX” in order to be more inclusive and sensitive to people’s preferences. However, the latest CulturIntel study unveiled that when it comes to identifying themselves as Hispanic, Latino, and/or LatinX, All generations have a preference for the term Latino/Latina. Older generations are more accepting of the term Hispanic than the younger ones. Most dislike the term Latinx displaying 70% or more negativity.
Among Boomers, GenX, Millenials, and GenZ, the most favorable term ir Latino/Latina with an average that ranges between 80% to 85% positive feedback while LatinX ranges between 71% to 93% negative perception among the same segment of the population among almost 800,000 digital conversations gathered in our study.
A full report on cultural labels is available at https://www.culturintel.com/hispanic-labels