BY BEATA GARRETT ’20
In 2018, Jeanine Cummins sold her novel “American Dirt” to Flatiron Books after an auction between multiple publishing houses. The book follows a Mexican woman forced to leave behind her life and escape to the U.S. with her son as undocumented immigrants. It received plenty of early praise and is a pick for Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club. According to The Los Angeles Times, renowned authors Stephen King, John Grisham and Sandra Cisneros praised the novel.
Myriam Gurba’s Dec. 12 review for Tropics of Meta changed the discourse.
“If Cummins had really wanted to draw attention to the assorted crises faced by ... Mexican migrants ... she could’ve referred readers to the primary and secondary sources she plundered,” Gurba wrote. She ended her article wary of the effects “American Dirt” might have on the current sociopolitical climate in the U.S., stating that she “can see Trump sitting in the White House’s movie theatre, his little hands reaching for popcorn ... ‘This!’ he yells. ‘This is why we must invade.’”
Since then, social media and news outlets have responded to the controversy. The novel has been criticized for being racist and appropriative. On Twitter, the Latinx community created “Writing my Latino novel,” a thread of satirical reaction posts to the book’s stereotypes and #DignidadLiteraria to promote Latinx writers. An open letter petitioning Oprah to remove the book from her club was published on LitHub on Jan. 29, and more criticism surrounding Flatiron Books and Cummins appeared soon after.
One of the issues with “American Dirt” is “the fact that the book is framed as ‘starting’ a discussion about the plight of migrants when activists and writers have been writing about this for a while. It erases us,” tweeted Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of “Gods of Shadow and Jade.”
On the podcast “Latino USA,” Cisneros reaffirmed her support for “American Dirt,” stating that the book is “going to change the minds that, perhaps, I can’t change.”
Moreno-Garcia responded, “Cisneros is basically saying we need white saviors ... because otherwise people won’t listen to us, and I think that’s a hugely flawed position.”
In May, Cummins posted pictures online of her book party, in which the centerpieces were wrapped with barbed wire. She later posted a barbed wire manicure on Twitter. After backlash, she deleted the photos. In interviews about “American Dirt,” Cummins claimed that she identifies as Latinx because of her Puerto Rican grandmother.
“Cummins, however, is still breaking in her Latinxness because four years ago, she wasn’t. I repeat: Four years ago, Cummins was white,” Gurba responded.
Gurba referenced a 2015 op-ed for The New York Times in which Cummins wrote, “I still don’t want to write about race ... I’m terrified of striking the wrong chord, of being vulnerable, of uncovering shameful ignorance ... I’m afraid of being misinterpreted.”
She continued, “In every practical way, my family is mostly white. I’ll never know the impotent rage of being profiled, or encounter institutionalized hurdles to success because of my skin or hair or name.”
According to Vox, Cummins stressed that her husband was an undocumented immigrant. She wrote, “All the years we were dating, we lived in fear that he could be deported at a moment’s notice.” Cummins did not mention that her husband immigrated to the U.S. from Ireland.
In an article for The Week, Jeva Lange wrote that Cummins “linking her white European husband’s plight to that of Latinx immigrants being terrorized in ICE raids and detained in inhumane conditions at the border is exploitative and gross.”
On Jan. 29, Flatiron Books released a statement from its president, Bob Miller, regarding the controversy.
“We should never have claimed that [the novel] defined the migrant experience; we should not have said that Jeanine’s husband was an undocumented immigrant while not specifying that he was from Ireland.”
Miller’s statement continued, “We can now see how insensitive those and other decisions were, and we regret them.”
The company also explained that its decision to cancel the book tour was based on “specific threats to booksellers and the author.” Writers like Porochista Khakpour and David Bowles found the statement inadequate and took issue with how Miller framed the Latinx community as violent.
“Just say you messed up,” journalist and activist Rosa A. Clemente wrote. “The fact that you are using this stereotype to cancel the tour reinforces your unwillingness to be accountable.”
These criticisms resonated with students at Mount Holyoke. “‘American Dirt’ is a harmful and stereotypical representation of the Latinx immigrant experience,” Isabel Rodriguez ’21 said. “It was frustrating to read a comment made by the author in which she stated that she wishes someone ‘slightly browner’ than her would write the story.”
“This comes off as an author with a white savior complex who fails to understand that there have been stories written by POC writers who haven’t been given the amount of money and resources on a book deal that she has had,” Rodriguez said. “She treats the narrative as an aesthetic ... with the offensive barbed wire centerpieces and manicure for her book.”
Rodriguez also pointed out that there is great racial disparity in the publishing industry.
According to the Lee & Low Books’ 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey, “76% of publishing staff, review journal staff and literary agents are white ... Hispanic/Latino/Mexican [agents comprise] 6%.”
As more articles on Cummins’ novel are published, conversations surrounding diversity in publishing have been reignited.
In an article for The Los Angeles Times, Esmeralda Bermudez wrote, “In the end, the real fight over ‘American Dirt’ is not about this writer ... [but] an industry that favors her stories over ones written by actual immigrants and Latinos.”
This article has also been translated in French, Mandarin, and Spanish