'American Dirt' has new lessons for today
Controversial novel has more to teach us post-election
“American Dirt,” a novel about immigration by author Jeanine Cummins, prompted high praise and stringent criticism when it was published in 2020: praise for it’s “I can’t put it down” writing quality, and criticism for neither being written by a Latino writer nor representing the “typical” Mexican immigrant. I just finished reading the book less than a month after Donald Trump’s 2024 election, and I think it’s time to revisit the book’s lessons.
Spoilers ahead!
In a nutshell: The novel tells the fictional story of how and why a drug cartel massacres a Latina woman’s family, then follows her and her young son as they flee to the United States to escape the same fate. The book earned rave reviews from many, including Oprah Winfrey and Stephen King. Others said the author isn’t credible because she’s not Latina and relied on stereotypes: Single mothers. Drugs. Rapists. Some accused her of profiting from (a fictional) someone’s trauma and pain. Still others said the publication of this book necessarily pushed aside the same chance for non-white authors.
I agree that no single book can represent every person’s story and that reading a book about a culture by someone outside that culture may expose you to stereotypes. I’m also certain that an established (white) author has an easier route to publication than a new writer of color.
Yet, not every valid book about a cultural phenomenon has been written by someone born into the culture. Mark Twain was white, but “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” taught uninformed readers about slavery. In her review, Catherine Zuckert (author, editor and professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame) said, “Americans do not understand the principles upon which their government is founded.” Because Americans don’t see that Black and white people should be equal under the law as it was conceived, Twain’s book is “one of the most serious critiques of American political principles ever written.”1
Books by writers like Twain have the power to draw in readers who otherwise would never allow themselves to consider a slave’s or an immigrant’s story on a personal, visceral level. A novel may not be the best way to educate the uninformed, but at least it gets them through the door.
For myself, I could have used the encouragement not give up on the human race after the 2020 election by reading “American Dirt” back then. After all, Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote, indicating to me that our society was growing more sensitive to genuine and equal representation. As the book would’ve promised, there’s still hope.
Instead, I’m even gladder that I finished the novel today, just a month after a racist criminal’s unfathomable election.
Post-election numbness: Cured.
I’d begun to get a bit numb to my anger and despair at the path this country has chosen for the next four years. “American Dirt” has reignited my anger at the gross hypocrisy taking over our government and my passion for doing something about it.
The man who has said more than 575 times, “Under Border Czar Harris, our communities are being ravaged by migrant crime” and more than 185 times, “[Democrats] want sanctuary cities, which means crime and drugs and death” is himself now a convicted criminal.2
How dare he point fingers based on misinformation. And how dare half of Americans either believe what he says or choose not to care.
“American Dirt” makes the hypocrisy undeniable. It also brings into sharp relief the vast, undeniable difference in the way Americans treat someone whose ancestors arrived here generations ago—especially from Europe—and someone who is trying right now to be one of those ancestors for future generations but has the bad luck of living south of our border.
Reading “American Dirt” just after the election, regardless of who wrote it, has reminded me that we privileged Americans don’t have a clue about what it takes to grab your kids and whatever what you can carry and flee a country like Ukraine or Honduras or Mexico in terror.
If we ourselves don’t end up in the same situation some day, our children’s children certainly might.
Based on how we’ve treated other, where will they be able to turn?
Ways you can help:
International Rescue Committee
National Immigrant Justice Center
How you can help migrant children
Sponsoring refugees
American Dirt on Amazon (I’m not affiliated with any sales)
“Huckleberry Finn at 100.” Claremont Review of Books.
“Fact-checking over 12,000 of Donald Trump’s statements about immigration.” The Marshall Project.