She feels “that screaming into the echo chamber wasn’t working.” But those of us who are “browner,” who have written these books, aren’t screaming. Contrary to what Kathleen Parker says (column, “Write for your race, culture,” Feb. 5), the issue with the book “American Dirt” isn’t writing about a culture not one’s own. But later, as the migrants approach Arizona, a “young, politicized liberal” tells Lydia about Arivaca, a town where “vigilante militiamen murdered a nine-year-old girl and her father years ago.” Here, when Americans are the ones being criticized, the author challenges such broad demonization, assuring us through the coyote’s dialogue, “There are good people in Arivaca, too.” Deciding to be silent on matters of policy is in itself a political stance. And it's harmful, appropriating, inaccurate, trauma-porn melodrama. That perspective feeds into many Americans’ fears that immigrants want to come to the US to have “anchor babies.” Never mind that in real life, the Trump administration will instruct consular officers to deny visas to pregnant travelers. ... started to attack the book, describing it as “trauma porn” and pointing to factual inaccuracies (none of them major). “What we really need to be talking about are Mexico’s migration policies, and how the Trump administration has influenced them.”. Cummins received a seven-figure advance for this book. Gurba said she does believe an outsider can successfully write about a community other than their own, but the underrepresentation of Latinos means books like “American Dirt” can get published with large inaccuracies. When I immigrated to the US at the age of 11, I came here on a plane; I never crossed the border illegally, because at that time my family had financial resources that many immigrants lack. Posted on January 29, 2020, at 10:05 a.m. A mordida is what Lydia should have paid to get the document she needed to board a plane with her son — but she is not resourceful in the way real immigrants are, and instead she boards the very dangerous “La Bestia” train instead. After being kidnapped by Mexican immigration officials, Lydia and Luca earn their freedom by paying their own ransom, but they are told by “el comandante” that they should not care about the other immigrants because “most of these are bad guys anyway.” Echoing Trump, he continues: “They’re gang members, they’re running drugs. Become a BuzzFeed News member. Jeanine Cummins’ American Dirt is not what I was hoping for. This is the opening scene and a cultural error that is a sign of things to come. Our “policy issues” are a direct consequence of our moral and humanitarian shortcomings. But when these mediums perpetuate dangerous stereotypes, they do not build bridges; they tear down the ones we’ve been working to build. As author Reyna Grande has poignantly written, “Unfortunately for us immigrants, the trauma doesn’t end with a successful border crossing. For our talent to be recognized and our stories to be honored — for our lived experiences to create a better reality for our community. Take, for instance, a scene in which hitmen fatally shoot Lydia and Luca’s family at a quinceañera, a coming-of-age party that in Mexico would typically be large and fancy. American Dirt fails to humanize immigrants because its author was unwilling to face the real forces behind migration and the very real challenges migrants meet once they arrive in the United States. By all accounts, she isn’t wrong. American Dirt, published on Jan. 21, chronicles the journey of a Mexican woman and her son who flee to the United States together as undocumented immigrants. “Dirty jeans, busted shoes, baseball hats.”. It’s harder to move past the echoes of racist assumptions about immigrants, the kind that can make an actual immigrant’s skin crawl. To learn more, review our Cookie Policy. American Dirt has been called “determinedly apolitical,” precisely because of these decisions to gloss over the political forces behind the circumstances of its characters. At least 25 immigrants have died while in ICE custody during Trump’s presidency. “Your baby will be a US citizen,” Lydia tells Soledad, a Honduran migrant whose beauty is described as “an accident of biology” and who has become pregnant after being raped. A reductive version of the complaints about American Dirt claims that the novel’s detractors believe that a white woman should not write about the experiences of Latino migrants. Critics say she did not achieve that goal, given how much she got wrong throughout the text. There have been tweet threads and essays, all arguing that the book deploys harmful stereotypes. And that is one of the many problems with American Dirt, according to several critics. That way, Gurba said, publishers will put out books that more accurately and authentically reflect the community portrayed in works of fiction. The Problem With American Dirt Is Not Its Author’s Background I couldn’t care less if Jeanine Cummins is white, but her book is a failure. Quinceañeras have a special place in my heart, because I always dreamed of having one in my hometown of Taxco, Guerrero, just four hours north of Acapulco. And yet when it comes to Mexico, it’s not new for outsiders to misrepresent the reality of the country, said David Miklos, a Mexico City-based novelist and a professor at CIDE, a university in Mexico City. Gurba and many others who joined the conversation are calling for a transformation of the book publishing industry. "American Dirt," the new novel by Jeanine Cummins, traces the journey a mother and son make to the US, after … "American Dirt" by Jeanine Cummins was celebrated by many critics as the great immigrant novel of our day. "They got played,” Gurba said. SUBSCRIBE NOW $1 for 3 months. After 378 pages, we arrive in the United States and it seems all is right with the world. Cummins confided in the book's afterword that she didn't know if … Cummins earned a seven-figure deal with Flatiron Books for the novel, according to Publisher’s Weekly, and the novel has been promoted by Oprah Winfrey’s book club — an endorsement that has sent many books to bestseller lists. Jan 31, 2020 1:30 PM. But the controversy centers around who gets to tell such a story, and the people who get to make that decision in America’s book publishing industry. Cummins also gets many cultural cues wrong, she added. The American Dirt mud-slinging contest: how Oprah’s favourite book turned toxic The most-anticipated American novel of the year is on the verge of being 'cancelled'. The story you just read is freely available and accessible to everyone because readers like you support The World financially. Julissa Arce is an activist and author of My (Underground) American Dream and Someone Like Me. Utilizamos cookies, próprios e de terceiros, que o reconhecem e identificam como um usuário único, para garantir a melhor experiência de navegação, personalizar conteúdo e anúncios, e melhorar o desempenho do nosso site e serviços. “I have no problem with fiction about current events in Mexico,” Miklos said. Ao continuar com a navegação em nosso site, você aceita o uso de cookies. ET. The protagonist of the book is Lydia, a Mexican mother fleeing with her son, Luca, from drug cartel hitmen in the city of Acapulco. American Dirt is a work of fiction, but it’s not fantasy; Cummins has a responsibility to accurately portray the context she places her characters in, especially since, as an author, she felt she had “the capacity to be a bridge.” I do believe that books, films, and TV shows have the ability to ignite cultural change, which can in turn create political change. Flatiron Books In the last week, you may have noticed a new book becoming the topic of many heated conversations. “Had there been Mexicans around, they wouldn't have gotten fooled.". She has told The Associated Press she spent extensive time in Mexico and met with many people on both sides of the border. Luca goes to school; Lydia cleans houses — because of course she does. But when American Dirt was finally released in January of 2020, it came with an overwhelming outcry from Latinx writers and readers. “American Dirt,” a fictional story, was published to immediate acclaim and hailed as a present-day “Grapes of Wrath.”. Instead the book takes its fictional protagonist, Lydia Quixano Pérez, on a perfectly crafted obstacle course with a neat ending that is rarely, if ever, the one real migrants encounter. A new novel about migration to the US stirred controversy as soon as it hit bookshelves this week. Latino critics say ``American Dirt'' contains stereotypes, incorrect regional slang, and cultural inaccuracies. I believe that for the rest of your life, you carry that border inside of you.”. Oprah selected the book as her latest book club pick, calling it “a remarkable feat, literally putting us in the shoes of migrants and making us feel their anguish and desperation to live in freedom.” Barnes & Noble also selected the book as its storewide book club title. The controversy comes NOT because a non-native wrote American Dirt, but because so many people feel that the book is done poorly, filled with stereotyped characters, inaccuracies … Her third novel, American Dirt, secured a seven-figure advance, an Oprah Book Club pick and a huge publicity campaign (waste of money; last week the Guardian alone gave the book a scale of promotion that its publisher Flatiron Books could never afford, although the paper’s worthies are sure testing that maxim about no publicity being bad). "American Dirt," a novel by Jeanine Cummins and an Oprah's Book Club selection, is seen on the shelves at a Barnes & Noble store in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Jan. 30, 2020. When the “sicarios” have emptied their clips and the “gunfire slows,” Luca can hear “a woman’s voice announcing ¡La Mejor 100.1 FM Acapulco!”. We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. In the author’s note, Cummins says she wrote this book in part because “the conversation [surrounding immigration] always seemed to turn around policy issues, to the absolute exclusion of moral or humanitarian concerns”— but we cannot divorce the political from the human condition of immigrants. Cummins confided in the book’s afterword that she didn’t know if she was the right person to write the book. Most of my pain as an immigrant came long after I entered the United States. Despite its entertainment value, American Dirt is an extremely inaccurate representation of the real situation of a real country—every bit as bad as my own phony imitation of the Received Pronunciation. We are supposed to believe that a well-to-do Mexican family does not have passports and that, with tens of thousands of dollars at her disposal and having made it to the Mexico City airport, Lydia has no option but to board the most dangerous form of transportation. But the book has also received piercing reviews from Latino authors, journalists, and immigrant rights organizations. The criticism of “American Dirt” is swirled with matching criticism of opportunities for Hispanics and Mexicans in the writing, editing and publishing worlds. I should have been more specific in my wishes and prayers. 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