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| Javier Ramirez and Jeanine Cummins | |
Yesterday morning, in front of a standing-room-only crowd, Javier Ramirez, co-owner of Madison Street Books (opening next month in Chicago), interviewed author Jeanine Cummins about her recently named B&N and Oprah pick American Dirt(Flatiron Books). The book follows Lydia Quixano Perez, jolted from her comfortable middle-class existence in Acapulco when she becomes the target of a drug cartel boss's wrath, and Mexico is no longer safe for her. Lydia flees with her eight-year-old son, Luca, for the United States. Cummins said the book took seven years to write; her older daughter was Luca's age when she began the book, and her younger daughter was Luca's age when she finished it. Cummins said, "I did everything I could think of to put myself in places where I could interview migrants, and the people who work to protect them."
For the most part, the audience of predominantly booksellers was supportive and welcoming, applauding the author and her empathy for migrants everywhere--be it Mexico or Syria. The book has come under fire by some advocates of the #ownvoices movement because Cummins herself is not Mexican and did not experience the events that Lydia experienced in the book. When a question from the audience echoed these concerns about what gave the author the right to tell this story, Cummins responded, "That's a question I asked myself for five years. I resisted this book and threw out two drafts. In the end, the migrants I spoke to, the people who protect them, showed me what courage looks like." She added, "Who gets to tell what stories is an important question, and one we need to examine. I'm happy to have a book that's opening up these conversations."
Several questions touched on immigration policy, and Cummins said she wanted to be careful about answering such questions because she is not an expert on immigration. "What's changed most is not the policy but the tenor of the policy. Policy predated this administration, but we weren't so gleefully cruel about it."
Cummins said that the unexpected death of her father in October 2016 and the election came so close together that they were inextricably linked in her mind. "Grief was the springboard" to her third and final attempt to write the book, which came together in 10 months.
Cummins said that Oprah Winfrey would be highlighting many of the organizations that the author interviewed for her research on the book during their interview. The author described a defining moment while interviewing a nun who runs a shelter on the Mexico side of the border for women and children; many of the women were separated from their children, who remained on the U.S. side after the mothers were sent back. Some of the women were turned in by jealous boyfriends, or beaten and then deported. "How do you not despair?" Cummins asked the nun. "My tears will not help them," the nun responded.
Cummins said, "I wrote a work of fiction that I hoped could be a bridge instead of screaming into an echo chamber."
She explained, "The beating heart of this book was that question: If you were in danger, what would you do to save your child?" --Jennifer M. Brown