Review: American Dirt

Posted by Marzie's Reads January 17, 2020

Review: American Dirt

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"If there's one good thing about terror, Lydia now understands, it's that it's more immediate than grief. She knows that she will soon have to contend with what's happened, but for now, the possibility of what might happen still serves to anesthetize her from the worst of the anguish." - American Dirt

Imagine you are a wife and mother, a daughter and aunt. Imagine you own a successful bookstore in Acapulco, the famous vacation destination in Mexico. Imagine your husband is an investigative journalist who writes an article about the new cartel that has seized power in Acapulco's Guerrero state. Imagine what the terrifying consequences of this article could be? Welcome to the life of Lydia Quixano Perez and her eight-year-old son Luca. From that single article to a single afternoon's family birthday party, Lydia and Luca's lives are shattered in a terrifying opening chapter in which sixteen members of their family are gunned down. Part of the horror is how utterly mundane it all is, and how ubiquitous such horror has become in Acapulco. After the events of that afternoon, Lydia knows she must, at all costs, get her child out of Mexico. But escaping the long reach of La Lechuza, jefe of the cartel Los Jardineros, who has a personal bone to pick with Lydia, will be achieved at a high cost and long odds. Along the way, Lydia and Luca will encounter other migrants seeking to avoid gang violence, like Soledad and Rebeca, ages fifteen and fourteen, and Beto, a child of ten who has been abandoned and who dreams of a better life.

Jeanine Cummins has written a compelling and genuinely harrowing novel that puts faces on migrants and their many reasons for risking everything for what they hope will be a safer life in El Norte, the USA. Through their eyes, we see the perilous journey across Mexico to the USA. And we see how uncertain their futures even here can be. American Dirt is a novel that engenders empathy, a novel that debunks the idea that all migrants are poor or ill-educated, or that they are merely seeking US jobs.

While this novel is one of 2020's most anticipated releases, Jeanine Cummins, who is of Puerto Rican not Mexican descent, has taken flack from some. This is especially true in a rather brutal essay, "Pendeja, You Ain’t Steinbeck: My Bronca with Fake-Ass Social Justice Literature" (Asshole, You Ain't Steinbeck: My Quarrel with Fake-Ass Social Justice Literature) by Myriam Gurba. She blasts Cummins for the fact that she isn't Mexican, and isn't a migrant. (I would like to point out that Cummins husband was an undocumented migrant, however.) Gurba suggests Cummins had no right to write this book and that her thin Puerto Rican blood isn't Latinx enough. I mention the essay because it shook me. It shook me because I couldn't figure out whether Gurba was just angry and jealous that Cummins got a big advance for this book or if she was angry that Cummins, a non-Mexican, could write a book that would receive as much praise as it has, as much coverage as it will, and all the nominations that it will likely get, and yet... it isn't exactly an #ownvoices novel. Did it need to be? Does it make the novel any less powerful? Does it eliminate the space for an #ownvoices author to come along and tell their own version of the migrant saga? No, it doesn't. In the meantime, I am in 100% agreement with Norma Prieto-Iglesias, a professor of Chicano Studies at San Diego State University: "Jeanine. We need as many voices as we can get, telling this story."

A Perilous Journey...

My only misgiving about this book is that many people who need to read this book are likely not to read it. Still, one can hope. There is hope on both sides of the border wall. The American dream isn't just in the USA.

Readers interested in learning more, and especially about helping migrant organizations should head over to Jeanine's website.