Portside

Latinx (pronounced “La-TEEN-ex”) is a gender-inclusive way of referring to people of Latin American descent. Used by activists andsome academics, the term is gaining traction among the general public, after having been featured in publications such as NPR to Latina. But where did Latinx originate, and is everybody on board with using it?

Latinx (pronounced “La-TEEN-ex”) is a gender-inclusive way of referring to people of Latin American descent. Used by activists andsome academics, the term is gaining traction among the general public, after having been featured in publications such as NPR to Latina. But where did Latinx originate, and is everybody on board with using it?

Author Justin Torres reflects on Latin Night at the queer club: "You didn’t come here to be a martyr, you came to live, papi. To live, mamacita. To live, hijos. To live, mariposas....for a moment, I want to talk about the sacredness of Latin Night at the Queer Club. Amid all the noise, I want to close my eyes and see you all there, dancing, inviolable, free."

Orlando solidarity, I and II; MacArthur Foundation flubs; Judge judged; Populism for sale; Trump rides the subway

As it turns out, language matters a lot. Calling these views as a whole “socialism” makes explicit a critique of capitalism and its shortcomings that cannot be grasped when the word itself is absent. It suggests that the reforms for which we fight are more than just an attempt to ameliorate the ills of a market-driven society; it says that it is the very system which is the problem, and which must be changed.

Let us call the tragic event for what it was: an attack on Orlando’s queer Latinx club night, Pulse. Regardless of the allegiances the shooter might have pledged, this was, without a shadow of a doubt, a queerphobic attack.

Peabody, the world’s biggest private sector publicly traded coal company, was long known as an outlier even among fossil fuel companies for its public rejection of climate science and action. But its funding of climate denial groups was only exposed in disclosures after the coal titan was forced to seek bankruptcy protection in April, under competition from cheap natural gas.

 Beating Donald Trump at the polls will be a necessary, but wholly insufficient step.

With the American public's limited attention span for international affairs tied up by fears of ISIS (also known as Daesh), intractable wars in the Middle East and unease about Putin's Russia, Obama's much-touted Asia-Pacific pivot frequently gets third or fourth billing on the foreign policy marquee.

This paper, written under the title, “U.S. Settler-Colonialism and Genocide Policies,” was delivered at the Organization of American Historians 2015 Annual Meeting in St. Louis, MO on April 18, 2015.