> Who said these people represented the general Spanish-speaking population?
That's a very good question. Since you appear to be arguing against that strawman, tell us, who said that?
EDIT: My point is, if we can acknowledge that, like Hispanic and Latino and Latino/Latina (each of which are strongly objected to by some in the community, preferred by others, and tolerated but neither preferred nor objected to by others when talking about the broader group inclusively) these are preferred identity labels of part of the community which is being addressed, we can then talk about how to address a community with internal divisions over preferred identity label, when one specifically wants to address the whole group and not just those who favor a particular label. But we can’t even get to that point as long as we pretend that this is just an external imposition unconnected to preferences expressed within the population described.
I'm asking because I genuinely don't know who decided that this group should make the call regarding how the general population is referred to, especially that the general population is disregarded in this matter in favour of the mentioned group?
EDIT: to elaborate: I take issue to the fact that this word is used to describe not just people who wanted to be referred to like that, but the general population.
> I take issue to the fact that this word is used to describe not just people who wanted to be referred to like that, but the general population.
This I agree with. This is a problem. And, in fact, we’ve been through and addressed almost this exact same problem with the inherently gendered nature (and default-male gender) of Spanish-derived demonyms and how that conflicts with some people’s gender identity before – and the problem of conflicts of preferred identity label for reasons other than gender – before. And mostly, what was done when addressing a group of mixed demonym preference with no single mutually-acceptable one was use multiple, joined with a slash (or, sometimes, here they differed only by a suffix, to separate the alternate suffixes with a slash.)
Actual, rather than performative, inclusion means not imposing a shared label just because you view the group as one for your purposes.
