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Xicanx ( , (2025). 9780816541836, University of Arizona Press. ISBN 9780816541836) is an English language gender-neutral neologism and identity referring to people of Mexican descent in the United States. The suffix replaces the ending of Chicano that are typical of grammatical gender in Spanish. The term references a connection to Indigeneity, Decoloniality, inclusion of genders outside the Western culture gender binary imposed through colonialism, and transnationality. (2025). 9780816539567, University of Arizona Press. ISBN 9780816539567 In contrast, most Latinos tend to define themselves in Nationalism terms, such as by a Latin American country of origin (i.e. "Mexican-American").
Xicanx started to emerge in the 2010s and media outlets started using the term in 2016. Its emergence has been described as reflecting a shift within the Chicano Movement. The term has sometimes been used to encompass all related identifiers of Latino/a, Latin@, Latinx, Chicano/a, Chican@, Latin American, or Hispanic, and to replace what have been called colonizing and assimilationist terms, like Latino/a, Mexican American, Mestizo, and Hispanic. Xicanx has also sometimes been used to include colonized people outside of just Mexican descent, such as people from Central America and South America.
Contemporary usage of the term Xicanx has been described as taking on new meanings. Luna and Estrada state that it has transformed to "reject Mexica-centrism, and instead can be viewed from a broader perspective, one that more widely embraces the Uto-Nahuatl, Mayan languages, and other Indigenous language families spoken throughout the Americas." Mariel M. Acosta Matos states that some speakers have suggested pronouncing -x with its phonetic value in the Mayan language (/ʃ/ or ‘sh’), where Xicanx is then pronounced as . The X may be perceived then as "symbolic return to Nahuatl and Maya usage and pronunciation and thus retains potential for Indigenous reclamation." Luna and Estrada argue that Xicanas, Xicanos, and Xicanxs adopted the X "not only as a respelling, but also as a conscious resistance to further Hispanicization/colonization." This includes the Xicanisma principle of reinserting the feminine into one's consciousness that has been subordinated by Spanish colonization via the imposition of the coloniality of gender.
The rejection of this coloniality in Xicanx forefronts gender neutrality, which is represented in the second x in Xicanx. As noted by Acosta Matos, "the fact that Nahuatl and the Mayan languages do not have grammatical gender classes has also influenced the deployment of gender neutral forms" of terminology. As a result, Acosta Matos argues that "the use of -x reveals the intersection of race/ethnicity and (grammatical) gender politics: it ‘symbolizes’ efforts to decolonize language. Adopting and using gender neutral nouns and pronouns reclaims activists’ Indigenous languages, as their linguistic systems do not conform with grammatical gender as codified in Spanish." Luna and Estrada refer to the second x as an "Indigenized genderqueer" representation that interrupts "colonization and male/female hierarchies" while still acknowledging that it operates within a "partially European construction of language." Xicanx has been referred to as a term that "moves closer to more Indigenous words, spellings, and identities."
Artist Roy Martinez describes Xicanx as "not being bound to the feminine or masculine aspects," stating that "it's not a set thing" that people should feel enclosed in, but that it is a fluid identity that extends beyond fitting within the gender binary and beyond borders. In an analysis of Alfred Arteaga's poetry, editor David Lloyd states that "the invocation of the shifting times and spaces through which Xicanx culture and poetics have emerged out of an indigenous context through successive Detribalization and the imposition of layers of imperial languages is crucial to Arteaga's mapping of the material foundations of a specifically Xicanx worldview, lodged in displacement and hybridity than any fixed identity." As stated by writer Christina Noriega, "there is no one 'formula' to be Xicanx."
Rose Borunda and Lorena Magalena Martinez describe the Decoloniality and transnational aspects of Xicanx identity:
The term "Xicanx" promotes a more inclusive and expansive view of Indigenous identity and stands separate from colonizing terms such as "Hispanic" or "Latino/a," terms that do not reflect indigeneity and that project the patriarchy of Spanish language with noun endings of "a" for female and "o" for male. The term, Xicanx, is inclusive of the Indigenous and colonized people of Mexican descent as well as the people who may originate from Central and South American nations.
Susy Zepeda argues that the Chicano Movement offered "surface-level representations of the Mexica" and that the roots of de-Indigenization were not adequately explored nor were Indigenous peoples "understood as living entities." While the Chicano Movement's recognition of indigeneity was a problematic yet important step, Zepeda partially attributes the lack of a deeper exploration to fear or susto: "there is almost a palpable fear of knowing more about ancestral traditions, culture, discipline, and the decolonial pathway of spirit." As such, Zepeda calls upon Xicanx scholars to perform "a conscious examination within the field of colonial trauma or legacy of susto... which can lead to a 'path of conocimiento
XicanX: New Visions was a national art exhibit curated by Dos Mestizx from February to June 2020 that featured the work of 34 artists. The exhibit received notable coverage after Xandra Ibarra's work was removed by city officials in San Antonio, Texas. The exhibition sought to challenge "previous and existing surveys of Chicano and Latino identity-based exhibitions."
The Raza Resource Centro at UC San Diego has hosted an annual Xicanx/Latinx Graduation ceremony since 2017.
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