Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Ms. SALAZAR. Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment, which would simply prohibit the executive branch from using the term ``Latinx'' in official public documents.

Although 98 percent of Latinos reject the term ``Latinx,'' the White House has made a point to continue referring to us, the Latinos, as ``Latinx.''

Mr. Chair, let's talk about the epidemic of wokeness in our community. Wokeness has taken over our schools and our children, and now it wants to take over the Hispanic culture.

The reality is that the Spanish language has two genders, masculine and feminine--male and female, period. There is no x.

A new generation wants to modify a universal Hispanic reality. It wants to erase a grammatical rule that has been place for centuries.

In 2004, the term ``Latinx'' first appeared online on Google Trends. It is supposed to signify a nonbinary option for Hispanics by removing the ``a'' for female or the ``o'' for male when addressing someone.

``Latinx'' has been overwhelmingly rejected by the Hispanic community in this country. Only 2 percent of the Hispanic population uses the term ``Latinx,'' while 90 percent prefer to use ``Hispanic'' or ``Latino.''

What we are seeing is that the use of ``Latinx'' is growing in university classrooms, where gender ideology and political correctness have taken over academics and intellectual rigor.

Listen to this. We are seeing the use of ``Latinx'' in government documents at a time when the people it refers to don't even want to use it. How could that be? That is imposing on us. We don't even want it.

That is why I have introduced this amendment to prohibit the Biden administration from using ``Latinx'' in official, public-facing government documents.

This is an important move that would prevent this wokeness from being forced onto us, the Hispanics, a conservative community that uses ``male'' and ``female,'' period.

Mr. Chair, I strongly urge my colleagues to support my amendment and to stand with the Latino community--``Latino'' with an o and ``Latina'' with an a, not with an x. I urge them to choose our traditional Hispanic culture over woke culture, to choose our history over political correctness to please a small group of people who don't even know anything about us.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. SALAZAR. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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