‘AMERICAN DIRT’ RISES IN FAME AND CONTROVERSY

What does it mean to tell another’s story?

It’s a question both supporters and detractors of the new novel, “American Dirt,” by American author Jeanine Cummings, have been asking themselves since a controversy surrounding the book has emerged. 

Either side of this conflict has evidently been defined by its own answer to this very question.

Telling the tale of a Mexican family seeking refuge in the United States from a violent threat in their home country, the narrative selects a peril extremely common in this contemporary climate, and uses said peril to weave together a story of survival and sacrifice.

American Dirt started off strong from the start; released on Jan. 21, the book immediately met praise from Oprah Winfrey’s eponymous Oprah’s Book Club, and it shot to the top of the New York Times Bestseller’s List very shortly afterward.

Sandra Cisneros, the highly respected Chicana-Feminist author best known by her 1983 novel, “The House on Mango Street,” praised American Dirt, regarding it as “the great novel of las Americas,” as well as “the international story of our times.”

Trouble was soon revealed, however, in the reactions to Cumming’s work by her activist contemporaries.

Numerous Mexican-American writers and publications have voiced their concerns regarding American Dirt, loud and clear: As well-written as it may be, they view the book as ultimately commodifying a story that is not Jeanine Cumming’s to tell, regardless of the author’s intended message (an apparently sympathetic one).

From their perspective, narratives like these are not merely casual coffee table reads written by authors with lots of personally comfortable distance from their subject matter. For immigrants and the children of said immigrants, stories like the one in American Dirt are often anything but comfortable, and are highly personal. And when the lack of true understanding that comes with being an observer is made clear, it often only serves as insulting, in the end.

Insulting, because the tale’s writer is able to benefit from the story of suffering people, while getting off scot-free in the process.

And yet – shouldn’t an author just be allowed to tell a good story? Why put that kind of responsibility on someone that may just want to write a work worthy of recognition?

The unfortunate truth seems to be that in the end, the world today is too complicated for simple desires like these. Desires that may be entirely pure-hearted (a tricky thing to examine especially when the potential monetary gain for the creator is considered), but also might naively ignore the strife of a group of people that doesn’t have the luxury to even consider questions like these.

It is with great privilege that most Americans can ask themselves questions relating to artistic integrity, while simultaneously not realizing on whom they could be stepping even while they ponder.

As of now, one cannot be sure just how time will or won’t favor American Dirt. Joseph Conrad’s classic work, “Heart of Darkness,” as highly respected and masterful in its composition as it is, can largely have the same criticisms levied against it: It describes a culture (and in Conrad’s case, rather insensitively, to say the very least) that its author is by no means native to, its story plays into stereotypes, it monetizes a culture by turning it into something able to be digested and done away with afterward, etc. 

Is this to say Heart of Darkness is absolved of these issues because of its impressive construction? Of course not, but perhaps this shows there is a line, after all, where one can appreciate a good narrative while simultaneously fully recognizing its deep shortcomings.

The extent of the potential damage (context is everything, after all) seems to clearly be up to the reader alone – whether their response is simply admiring Cumming’s novel, or realizing there may be a lot to learn from it. Or both.