There is a tremendous shift in public digital discourse and the academy more broadly, about the use of Latinx, one that may appear, on the surface, as an uncritical, hip way to shift how we talk about ourselves. While there is a long history of contestation about these categories of naming, my goal in this essay is to chart out the histories of how we went from using Mexican American and Puerto Rican to Chicano and Nuyorican and then the latest iterations, like Latina/o and eventually Latinx. By drawing on specific case studies of millennial digital cultures and the creation of new-phase ethnic studies departments in the 2000s, I demonstrate how millennials use Latinx to transcend gender, racial, class, and regional constraints they see emanating from boomer-generation ethno-nationalist formations. To be a part of the affective community represents a core value for millennials because it is antiessentialist because Latinx bears the load of recognition and diversity and represents the power of inclusion without speaking for everyone. Ultimately, Latinx can carry the excessive and diverse affective load of a population in ways that other ethno-nationalist and pan-Latina/o terms cannot.
BlackwellMCoteraMEspinozaD (2018) Women who make their own worlds: the life and work of Ester Hernandez (Unpublished Manuscript). Chicana Movidas. Austin: University of Teas Press.
7.
Bonilla-SilvaEFormanT (2000) “I’m not a racist but.” mapping white college students’ racial ideology in the US. Discourse & Society11: 50–85.
8.
CardenasM (2018) Constituting Central American-Americans: Transnational Identities and the Politics of Dislocation. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
9.
CastilloA (1995) Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.
10.
Chabram-DernersesianA (1999) Chicana! Rican? No, “Chicana, Riqueña!” In: AlarcónNKaplanCMoallemM (eds) Between Woman and Nation: Nationalisms Transnational Feminisms, and the State. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 264–295.
11.
DonawaV (2014) The Black-Latin@ collective: identity negotiation among Black Latin@s on Facebook. Master’s Thesis, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI.
12.
FloresJ (2003) Latino studies, new concepts, new contexts. In: PobleteJ (ed.) Critical Latin American and Latino Studies. Minneapolis, MI: University of Minnesota Press, 191–205.
13.
FloresJJimenez-RománM (2009) Afrolatin@ Reader: History and Culture in the United States. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
14.
GamboaR (2017) Interview. 27March.
15.
GamboaR (2017) Facebook status update, 7March.
16.
Gómez-BarrisMFiol-MataL (2014) Introduction: las Américas quarterly. American Quarterly66(3): 493–504.
Guidotti-HernándezN (2011) Unspeakable Violence: Remapping US and Mexican National Imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
19.
GuzmánJJLeónCA (2016) Cuts and impressions: the aesthetic work of lingering in Latinidad. Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory25(3): 261–276.
MilianC (2013) Latining America: Black-Brown Passages and the Coloring of Latino/a Studies. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
22.
MirabalNR (2017) Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823-1957. New York: New York University Press.
23.
MontesP (2016) Afro-ing, indigenized, and degendering Spanish lexicon?(Ex)tending conversations on “x” constructions (Unpublished Paper). Paper Written for UT Austin Graduate Seminar, December 2016.
24.
MuñozJE (2000) Feeling brown: Ethnicity and affect in Ricardo Bracho’s the sweetest hangover (and other STDs). Theatre Journal52(1): 67–79.
25.
NoelU (2014) InVisible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press.
26.
OchoaM (2014) Los Huecos Negros: cannibalism, Sodomy and the Failure of Modernity in Tierra Firme. Unpublished Manuscript, Tepoztlán Institute for Transnational History of the Americas, Portland, OR.
