Hispanic. Latino. Latinx. Latine. What Are We Even Saying?

It's that time of year again…whenHispanic Heritage Montharrives and brands roll out the marigold, the papel picado graphics, and somewhere in a group chat someone timidly asks: wait, are we supposed to say Hispanic or Latino? Latina? Latinx? Latine? I get asked this a lot. Partly because I'm in entertainment and these conversations come up constantly in casting rooms and pitch meetings. And partly because of my own unique position in it. I'm Brazilian and thus Portuguese is my first language. Technically, 'Hispanic' doesn't even apply to me since it refers to Spanish-speaking heritage. Pero of course, it was the only option on forms for many years and so I chose it. I won many scholarships thanks to that word. 'Latina' however, fits for me, since it's about Latin America as a region, not a language. Try explaining that at a party. I'll be honest, this isn't just a fun linguistic puzzle. When I first moved to LA, I struggled to find my place inside the Latino community here. I'd walk into rooms where the shared language was Spanish, the shared references were Spanish-language, and even though I had my rite of passage through Miami and picked up some Spanglish along the way, I would often worry my heritage wasn't enough to be embraced by them. Although Brazil is Latin America, geographically and historically, it doesn't share the language or a lot of the cultural touchstones that signal 'Latino' in the U.S. That gap made me feel like a guest in a room I technically belonged in. It honestly delayed my own interest in digging into all of this, because for a long time it felt easier to just opt out of the labeling entirely. Things have gotten a lot better since then, both in how I see my own place in it and in how the broader conversation has widened to make room for Afro-Latino, Indigenous, and yes, Brazilian identities that don't fit neatly under 'Hispanic.' That early disorientation is a big part of why I felt compelled to write this. Hispanic Heritage Month kicks off next week, on September 15th, so here's your guide to navigating all the options on what to say, where they came from, and why we should be celebrating it in the first place. It started small. In 1968, Congress passed a bill authorizing the president to proclaim aNational Hispanic Heritage Week,(A whole week!? For our party people? No, no se puede!)and Lyndon Johnson signed it into law that same day. In his proclamation, Johnson wrote about honoring'the great contribution to our national heritage made by our people of Hispanic descent.' It stayed a week for twenty years. Then in 1988, a bill fromSenator Paul Simonexpanded it into a full month and Reagan signed it into law that August, riding the coattails ofRep. Esteban Torres, a Mexican-American congressman from East LA who'd actually proposed the whole thing a year earlier, only to watch his billquietly die in committee. The following year, George H.W. Bush became the first president to declare the full 31 days,September 15 through October 15, as National Hispanic Heritage Month,describing a nation enriched by the'quiet strength of closely knit families and proud communities.'Every president since has issued the proclamation. So the 'month' itself is younger than a lot of people assume. It's not even 40 years old as a month-long observance. Which helps explain why the language around it still feels unsettled. September isn't just when the U.S. observance starts, it's when an enormous share of Latin America itself won independence. Add Brazil to the mix, whose Independence Day was celebrated yesterday (!!!), September 7th, and you've got Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua all celebrating independence within an eleven-day window. That'ssevencountries celebrating within an eleven-day window,and it is not a coincidence. Why thank you very much Napoleon! Let's take a quick jaunt back to World History class. When French forces invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 1807 and 1808, they knocked both the Spanish and Portuguese crowns off balance at almost the same moment. Portugal's royal family fled to Rio de Janeiro, which raised Brazil's status within the empire and planted the seeds for its own break in 1822. Spain's king was deposed, which threw its American colonies into a legitimacy crisis, since nobody could agree on who actually had authority to govern them anymore. That crisis triggered the independence wave across Spanish America between roughly 1810 and 1821. And the Central American dates aren't a separate coincidence stacked on top of that one. Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica were then unified as a single Spanish colonial territory, so when independence was declared in Guatemala City on September 15, 1821, all five became independent in the same act. Basically, the whole hemisphere's September cluster traces back to the same two-year window of European instability. Pretty wild, right? Buckle up. The roots of 'Hispanic,' 'Latino,' 'Latinx,' and 'Latine' and why none of them are as neutral as they sound Why the confusion isn't really about grammar at all What the newest Hollywood representation numbers say about who gets to tell these stories, and who's still shut out My honest answer to 'so which word should I actually use?' The existence offour or five different wordsshouldn't make your head spin and turn the other way. In fact, I'd hope for the opposite, that it reads as an invitation to discuss identity, which tends to be complex and multifaceted for anyone with a pulse these days. Let's dig in.