Professor Kimberly Rios, PhD student Alexis Morales, and collaborator Michael Zarate at the University of Texas at El Paso have received a grant from the University of Pennsylvania's Adversarial Collaboration Project. Funded originally by the Koch Foundation (which gave a sub-award to UPenn), the project brings together researchers who have competing/opposing hypotheses and provides funds for the researchers to investigate which of these hypotheses is supported by the data. This project tests how Hispanic/Latino(a) Americans perceive political candidates and organizations who use the new terms "Latinx" and "Latine" to communicate with potential voters. Preliminary data suggests that Hispanic/Latino(a) Americans, particularly those who are cisgender and heterosexual, do not identify with the labels "Latinx" and "Latine," and view these labels as primarily used by non-Hispanic White people. The team is interested in extending these findings to the political realm and determining when the use of the terms "Latinx" and "Latine" is most likely to induce backlash. We asked Professor Rios to tell us more about this fascinating project.
Could you provide some background on the motivation behind this project or pursuit?
All three of us (Alexis, Dr. Zarate, and I) identify as Hispanic/Latino(a). However, we differ in the extent to which we refer to ourselves and our communities as "Latinx" or "Latine". In our conversations about when Hispanic/Latino(a) Americans might find "Latinx" and "Latine" especially egregious, we found that we had different predictions! On one hand, Hispanic/Latino(a) Americans might be most averse to a non-Hispanic White politician (or primarily White organization) that adopts the terms "Latinx" and "Latine" if they perceive such terms as being imposed onto "us" (the ingroup) by "them" (the outgroup). On the other hand, Hispanic/Latino(a) Americans might be most averse to a Latino politician (or primarily Latino organization) that adopts the terms "Latinx" and "Latine" if they view doing so as pandering to White Americans' interests and, in a sense, betraying the ingroup. We look forward to learning which of these predictions is best supported by the data!
Were there any collaborative efforts or partnerships that played a crucial role in the success of this project?
I'm grateful for the interesting and informative discussions my student Alexis and I have had about issues related to our identities and associated terminology. Without these discussions, our project would never have come to fruition. Additionally, not only has Dr. Zarate been a source of ideas (and sometimes opposing hypotheses!) for this project, but he is also my longtime friend and mentor in the field. I thank him for inspiring me to pursue identity-related research and providing constant encouragement (e.g., positive feedback on publications or reviews, going out of his way to make sure we connect at conferences) throughout my career.
Major projects often come with challenges. Could you share a key challenge you faced and how you overcame it? What did you learn from this experience?
Despite that our initial data show overall resistance to the terms "Latinx" and "Latine" among the Hispanic/Latino(a) community, Hispanic/Latino(a) Americans who identify as LGBTQ+ may see "Latinx" and "Latine" as more inclusive than "Latino." (And we do have some evidence that this is the case among LGBTQ+ participants in our studies.) As a result, it is challenging to balance the needs and preferences of the Hispanic/Latino(a) community and the LGBTQ+ community. Because Hispanic/Latino(a) LGBTQ+ Americans belong to two different minority groups, they are perhaps especially sensitive to cues as to whether their identities are valued in different situations... and such cues can include language and labels. Thus, from a practical standpoint, we definitely wouldn't recommend using "Latino" instead of "Latinx" or "Latine" even if that is the preference of most Hispanic/Latino(a) Americans. Instead, the context and audience matter!
Based on your experience with this endeavor, what advice or insights would you offer to others who might be considering similar opportunities?
Disagreement with other researchers can be healthy and constructive. Sometimes the most interesting ideas are borne out of competing theoretical perspectives and predictions. So, if you are chatting with a colleague and you can't agree on which of your perspectives is "correct," perhaps it is worthwhile to turn that chat into a research collaboration!
Looking ahead, how do you see this project evolving or expanding?
We hope this project sheds light on the identity-related terms Hispanic/Latino(a) Americans prefer for politicians and organizations to use, and under what conditions. Perhaps more important, however, our results could have implications for the factors that mobilize Hispanic/Latino(a) voters and increase political engagement among this community. In the future, we'd like to assess such outcomes. We also are working on a separate set of studies assessing how Hispanic/Latino(a) college students' sense of belonging and motivation in school is affected by administrators' and professors' use of the terms "Latinx" and "Latine."
