Dear Ms. Martin:
Though I am a long-time NPR fan, I am extremely disappointed with your interview with American Dirt author, Jeanine Cummins. I question whether you and/or NPR even did your homework by reading the book before you conducted your interview with Ms. Cummins, or whether you merely succumbed to pressure from people who obviously did not read it. As a result, you missed an opportunity to shed insight into the plight and peril of undocumented immigrants who flee for their safety to the US, to what they hope will be a better life.
The cries of outrage about this book are completely unfounded and unjustified. I can think of only two reasons for the critics: 1) They did not read the book and instead honed in on the title, which could be misinterpreted as describing immigrants as "dirt," even though the book does anything but. That's unfortunate, and I think a different title could have avoided this hew and cry. 2) They are incredulous that a White woman (who states in the author's note that she married an undocumented immigrant, researched this book for five years, traveled through Mexico and along border towns, and has a grandmother from Puerto Rico) had the "audacity" to write a book from the viewpoint of a Hispanic immigrant.
To these critics I say: Read the book. Cummins portrays immigrants as well-rounded, three-dimensional people who are desperate and often grief-stricken. American Dirt is a masterpiece. It beautifully and compassionately recounts a twenty-first century migrant's journey, evoking hints of The Grapes of Wrath. But to say that Cummins re-used Steinbeck's story does not do it justice. She did not. American Dirt is its own marvel - and it introduces many of us to the harrowing horrors of immigrant life, which do not end even if/when the immigrants manage to make it across the border.
Jeanine Cummins does an excellent job of sympathetically portraying the plight of Central American immigrants as they flee real horrors of cartel violence, rapes, and domestic violence and endure extreme hardships to arrive at what they believe will be a better life.
Her book does not present stereotypical characters who are uneducated, poor, and ignorant. Rather, the main character, Lydia, is a college-educated, bookstore owner with a journalist husband who unwittingly becomes an immigrant who flees for her life with her eight-year-old son, after her entire family is murdered by a cartel in Acapulco. Along the way, she meets other immigrants, including deportados from los Estados Unidos - a man in the middle of his PhD and a female doctor who have been inexplicably and cruelly deported by ICE.
The book is timely in revealing the side of immigrants and their harrowing experiences that many of us do not know or understand. The US is revealed to be no better, necessarily, than the countries the immigrants have fled, with Border Patrol and US agents constantly monitoring, separating children from their parents, and instilling fear and taking bribes. The unspoken threat is that these undocumented people could be collected at a moment's notice. However, for every evil act, there is also an equal act of kindness, proving that there are good, generous people who believe in hope, humanity, and freedom.
The language in the book is gorgeous, tightly written, each word chosen meticulously. Cummins is obviously fluent in Spanish and intersperses Spanish words and phrases with the English, lending to the credibility of the story and its subjects. Thank you, Jeanine Cummins, for a brilliant novel that has opened my eyes to the immigrants' endurance, determination, and excruciating attempts to journey to safety.
Please read it, and do not capitulate so easily to assumptions about who can and cannot write about immigrants or people of different races. Cummins created a "bridge" between US citizens and Hispanic immigrants, and unfortunately, you submitted to political correctness and poor journalism (without conducting research) and did not portray the full picture of what this book has accomplished.
Sincerely,
Jill Caugherty