Eva Longoria’s New Show ‘Brown-ish’ Sparked a Twitter Debate About the Term ‘Latinx’
Photos via Getty Images/Twitter
Eva Longoria definitely got more than she bargained for recently. On Wednesday, the producer/director/actress announced that she was in talks with Kenya Barris (the creator of “Black-ish,” “Grown-ish,” and “Mixed-ish”) to create a new spinoff show called “Brown-ish”.
The announcement was as follows: “Barris and Eva Longoria had been bouncing around ideas for brown-ish, which would revolve around a modern Latinx family.”
While that statement seemed innocuous enough, the possibility of another show from Kenya Barris as well as the use of the term “Latinx” made the discussion catch on like wildfire.
Not only were people tired of the same old formula Barris uses to make shows (the “-ish” thing especially), but people were also wary of the type of show that a show called “Brown-ish” would turn out to be. Latinos from many different countries, races, and cultures chimed in about how problematic a show like this could be.
“Latinx is not a race,” wrote one Twitter user. “And posing a Latinx family as “brown” only contributes to “mestizaje” narratives that have systemically erased Indigenous, Black and Asian communities in the region.”
Another person wrote: “Ummmmmm….. calling it brownish would imply that a Latinx family can’t be Black…as an Afro-Latino I have to ask…WHO ASKED FOR THIS!!! Like….”
Another person made assumptions, based off of Barris’s previous shows, on what a show like “Brown-ish” would look like: “I’m picturing 1 white American parent and 1 Mestizo hispanic parent. The kids won’t know how to speak Spanish. We will get episodes about how the kids don’t feel Hispanic enough or American enough. That is Hollywood’s ONLY image of a ‘modern’ family.”
But above all, the outcry over the “Brown-ish” announcement centered around the press release’s use of the word “Latinx”.
As one Twitter user said: “WTF…just goes to show their not really interested in authentically depicting Latinos…Obviously their target audience is that 3% who use the term latinX and not the other 97% of Latinos…I repeat WTF!!!”
At one point, it seemed like all of Latino Twitter was debating the term–most people firmly in the anti-Latinx camp.
To make things even weirder, Ted Cruz (the foremost expert on what Latinos want and like) chimed in on the conversation. The Cuban-American Texas senator wrote: “No actual Latino uses the woke made-up term ‘Latinx’.”
And while there are a lot of Latinos who don’t agree with Ted Cruz on practically anything, a few of them begrudgingly took his side in this matter. As one person wrote: “I hate to admit it but in this case Ted has a point. Latinx is an Americanized version, that “x” pronunciation doesn’t even relate to our language and is hard to catch up for a non-USA Hispanic person. We have such a beautiful language. Why Americanize it?
