Jeanine Cummins is the author of the now best-selling and controversial novel, American Dirt. American Dirt is about bookstore owner, Lydia Quixano Pérez and her family, who live and work in Acapulco, Mexico. They live a pretty comfortable life until her husband writes and publishes a story about an up-and-coming cartel boss named Javier.
Soon, Lydia and her eight-year-old Luca, are on the run for the U.S. border and the unknown. Will they make it to the "safety" of El Norte? The scenario is one that North American audiences have become more intimate with since President Trump started separating families at the border and putting children in cages. For families south of the border however, these draconian measures are hardly new or surprising, going as far back as the Obama administration. And that may be what part of the controversy is ...that the hands-off experiences of persons at or north of the border do not and can not match up with those of the persons that exist south of the border.
Cummins, who until recently identified as white, now claims to be half-Puerto Rican, and tried to use that bit of Latinx blood to justify her ability to identify with the subjects of her novel. Unfortunately, that's a problem too. Although many Puerto Ricans have their own unique stories of migrating to the mainland U.S.A., Puerto Ricans have been American citizens for 100 years, and even though they may sympathize with their Latinx brothers and sisters who are trying to make it to the relative safety of the U.S. from Central and South America, and Mexico, the vast majority of Puerto Ricans do not have the intimate knowledge of the type of migrant experience that would qualify them as true experts on the subject. And that is just one of the reasons why Cummins, and American Dirt, fell short.
Now, don't get me wrong, American Dirt is as well written as Cummins' other novels, "A rip in time," and "A crooked branch," but as with any work that describes or includes the lives and lands of anyone other than your own, your research must be impeccable. You MUST take great pains to not slide arrogantly down the slippery slope of stereotyping characters based on the lives and experiences of real people. Because, after all, these are real people. The majority of North Americans know very little about the daily lives of their fellow Americans south of the border. They tend to rely mostly on second and third-hand information, movies, books, and even television shows to teach them about their southern-most neighbors. Even Jeanine Cummins said that, “I wish someone slightly browner than me would write it,” when referring to the book in question.
So, should Cummins not have written American Dirt at all? As a writer myself, I have to say that no one should be able to tell you what and what not to write. The freedom to express yourself is part of what being a writer is all about. That said, as an artist of any type, you have to be prepared for criticism. Jeanine Cummins and American Dirt will both weather this storm of controversy, and move on. It's been said that there's no such thing as bad publicity, and despite or because of, the negative publicity surrounding this book, it has been propelled to the best-seller lists. Do people have a right to be outraged or disappointed with the way certain characters or even places are portrayed in this book? Oh, absolutely! Do other people have a right to like it as it's written? Again, oh absolutely! After all, we ultimately write for ourselves, and if our audience "gets it" we feel ecstatic and vindicated! If we miss the mark as far as our readers are concerned, we will feel the complete opposite. Jeanine Cummins missed the mark because she is obviously operating under the same belief system that enabled North American media to improperly, negatively, erroneously, and stereotypically depict Latinx people and People of Color for decades!
I actually wish Jeanine Cummins good luck with her next work of fiction, although I doubt that she will need it after the success of American Dirt. But I would like to offer her a small bit of writing advice that many new and beginning writers hear, and that I usually disagree with vehemently ..."write what you know."
