‘American Dirt’ and Latinx Speculative Fiction: Read This, Not That

Maybe American Dirt just came into your view, seemingly already a big deal. Maybe you, like I, are the kind of reader who follows new releases and have been watching this like a slow motion Fast & Furious explosion. American Dirt is the latest example in an almost constant flow of novels by “well meaning” white authors who take it upon themselves to “write for the other” and accidentally (totally not accidentally) get way more money and press doing so than any of the “others” get for writing themselves. Because this book was touted as The Book of the Year and our friend Oprah put it on her Book Club, and because the impeachment trial is both boring and depressing, American Dirt is hot news. But why? And why should you as a reader care? And what can you do to support Mexican, Mexican American, and Latinx authors as they speak their truth about it? Silvia Moreno-Garcia — https://www.silviamoreno-garcia.com/blog/ — We loved her recent book: Gods of Jade and Shadow Let me sum up… Jeanine Cummins, a white American woman, wrote a book that was lauded pre-publication as The New Grapes Of Wrath. No, I don’t know what that means, even in high school I skipped as many novels of the white canon as I could get away with. Her novel, American Dirt is the story of Lydia Quixano Perez and her son Luca who, after the rest of the family is killed in a hit on the journalist father, migrate to the United States. They are running from the drug runners who control everything. In this refugee…