Dominican American podcaster and TV personality The Kid Mero (Desus & Mero), born Joel Armogasto Martinez, identifies as a “Black Latino cishet male from the Bronx.” During a recent interview with National Public Radio’s program Code Switch, The Kid Mero talked about his Latinidad and what he thinks about terms like “Latinx” and “Latine.”
“I never thought I was anything other than a Black Latino,” he says.
The Kid Mero explains that growing up, kids at his school would only identify him as Black. It was confusing for him that they did not mention that he was also Dominican. “English was my second language,” he says. “I spoke Spanish exclusively at home. It was a weird balance of your Blackness and your Latinidad.”
As for his thoughts on the words “Latinx” and “Latine,” The Kid Mero thinks there are “too many terms out there.” He uses Latino and Latina for cis individuals but will use “Latine” if he knows someone that he is interacting with is nonbinary. He’s not a fan of “Latinx.”
“Latinx sounds like porno to me,” he says. “I’m not gonna lie. When I first heard Latinx, I was like, ‘Oh, Vanessa del Rio is back?!’ Let’s go!”
When it comes to talking to his kids about their biracial identity (they’re half white), The Kid Mero says he’s “Captain Dominican Republic” in the house.
“There’s Dominican flags all over,” he says. “The music is always playing. My oldest is nine, so I feel like if I shipped them off to the DR now for two or three years … they’re gonna learn Spanish perfectly and start a little reggaeton group, which I can then promote and become rich.”
The Kid Mero says that sometimes his Latinidad hinges on where he is in the country. When he’s on the East Coast, he’s Latino. It’s more complex when he’s on the West Coast.
“It’s like, ‘What are you? You look like Will Smith with diabetes,’” he says. “It’s not a monolith. I feel like people expect it to be that way. At the end of the day, we all fall under this main umbrella, but we’re all different.”