A Republican state bans the use of 'Latinx'

By Nicole Acevedo —

A few hours after being sworn in as the new governor of Arkansas, Republican Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed an executive order on Tuesday that prohibits the official use of the term

in state government.

It's one of the first, if not the first, executive order of its kind, Tabitha Bonilla, a professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University, told NBC News.

It was one of seven orders signed by Sanders right after he was sworn in.

The others focused on prohibiting schools from teaching critical race theory, and budgeting and spending policies, as well as other government issues.

Most of these executive orders are consistent with the rhetoric Sanders campaigned on, except for the one banning

, a gender-neutral alternative to Hispanic or Latino.

“It wasn't anything I had seen of her before then,” Bonilla said, “so I was surprised.”

Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday in Little Rock.Will Newton / AP

For Ed Morales, author of the book

, the governor's interest in the term

—which is often ridiculed by conservatives and also debated among Latinos— speaks of “this anti- wake up” that the Republican Party has increasingly embraced.

[Axios Latino: The 'Latinx' Debate and Other Issues You Need to Know Today]

“It's something that seems to be tied to things they're opposed to, which is really anything that puts marginalized people and marginalized viewpoints first,” Morales said.

Bonilla added that what is even more unexpected is that Sanders would sign such an executive order on his first day in office.

“That sets the tone for the type of governance that he wants to enact, what he considers a priority, and the types of decision-making that he will make in an office,” Bonilla said.

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Sanders cited a 2020 Pew Research Center report that only 3% of the Hispanic population uses the term.

He also cited the Royal Spanish Academy, which rejects the use of "x" as a supposedly neutral alternative to "o" and "a".

The governor relied on the findings of both institutions to remove what she considers "ethnically insensitive" and "pejorative language," according to the executive order.

Morales said Sanders appears to have tried to use "Pew's only Hispanic report as evidence that people find it offensive or reject it" without taking into account that there have been subsequent studies that point to a small increase in the use of the term and the appearance from other gender-neutral alternatives like

.

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Citing the Pew report on the executive order, Sanders did not say that the study also found that 76% of Hispanics had never even heard of the term

before, Bonilla noted.

“She is offering these justifications, and it seems to me that she has been trying to portray the data and the information in a way that is really trying to please,” Bonilla explained.

Nearly 4% of the voting population in Arkansas is Hispanic.

But "pleasing" voters on cultural issues that may be considered divisive among Hispanics could be on Sanders's radar if she aspires to venture as a vice-presidential or presidential candidate in the future, Bonilla added.

Only 2% of Latinos identify as 'Latinx'.

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The executive order also calls for all state offices, departments, and agencies to submit written reviews of their current use of the term

and revert to using

,

, or

.

“I don't think it shows up very often in most government documents,” Bonilla said.

"My biggest question is: who does this affect the most?"

Sanders' executive order appears to be part of a growing number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures across the country, as

is often seen as a more LGBTQ-inclusive term.

The vast majority of these bills have been introduced by Republicans.

"It's actually about transgender and non-binary people," says Bonilla, "in the language it's portrayed as well."