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Iowa caucus: News pundit caught calling Democrat event 'effing disaster' on hot mic

Supporters of democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

 wait for results to come in at his caucus night watch party on

 February 03, 2020 in Des Moines, Iowa: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

An MSNBC pundit was caught on air expressing that the Iowa caucus had turned into an “effing disaster” Monday night.

The moment was captured in a clip widely spread around social media on Tuesday. In the video, a male voice can be heard over the voice of another MSNBC presenter as they give an update on the caucus.

NO SEVEN SECOND DELAY

“Oh my god, what an effing disaster,” the voice said.

Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell and Brian Williams were anchoring for the network at the time of the broadcast, as well as numerous pundits who appeared during the night.

While the slip up on live TV wasn’t a hallmark of professionalism, the sentiment of the disembodied voice wasn't unwarranted.

Issues with a voting app used by the state Democratic party are reportedly to blame for the delay in results coming out of Iowa.

During Monday night’s chaos, precinct captains took to Twitter, reporting that they’d been on hold with the state Democratic party for hours waiting to report their results. Many of them posted the results on the social media site, including explanations of how the delegate splits work.

Several of the candidates gave something resembling victory speeches as it became clear there would be no official results that evening.

Senators Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, along with Andrew Yang, former Vice President Joe Biden and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, made speeches that suggested victory was just around the corner. For each of them.

Of all the speeches, Mr Buttigieg’s - which was the last to be delivered - was the most brazenly evocative of a victory speech.

“We don’t know all the results, but we know by the time it’s all said and done, Iowa you have shocked the nation," Mr Buttigieg said. “By all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.”

Mr Buttigieg walked back the comments on MSNBC the next day, suggesting instead that the evening was a “victory for the campaign” rather than an outright campaign victory.

Buttigieg, Sanders nearly tied as Iowa caucus results narrow

STEVE PEOPLES and JULIE PACE

,

Associated Press•February 5, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders are nearly tied in the Iowa Democratic caucuses, with nearly all results counted in a contest marred by technical issues and reporting delays.

The race remained too early to call early Thursday with 97% of precincts reporting. Party officials were scrambling to verify the remaining results three days after Iowans gathered at caucus sites across the state to begin choosing which Democrat will take on President Donald Trump in November.

A new batch of results released just after midnight narrowed the margin between Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Sanders, the progressive senator from Vermont. Buttigieg has a lead of three state delegate equivalents out of 2,098 counted.

The deadlocked contest gives both Buttigieg and Sanders a burst of momentum as they seek to pull away from the crowded field. The nearly complete results show them leading Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, with former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Amy Klobuchar trailing behind.

But the results in Iowa were muddied by the stunning breakdown of the caucus reporting process in a state that traditionally kicks off presidential nominating contests. Iowa officials initially attributed a delay in reporting results to technical problems with an app that precinct chairs were supposed to use to record votes, then to backlogs as those volunteers tried to call the party to submit their totals.

Even as the total number of results ticked up throughout the day Wednesday, obstacles remained. Some tally sheets were making their way to party headquarters in Des Moines through the mail, which contributed to the delay.

Much of the political world has already shifted its attention to next-up New Hampshire, which holds the first primary election in the Democrats' 2020 nomination fight on Tuesday. Both Buttigieg and Sanders are leading contenders there, as well.

The two men are separated by 40 years in age and conflicting ideology.

Sanders, a 78-year-old self-described democratic socialist, has been a progressive powerhouse for decades. Buttigieg, a 38-year-old former municipal official, represents the more moderate wing of the Democratic Party. Buttigieg is also the first openly gay candidate to earn presidential primary delegates.

Their strength in Iowa put them in the crosshairs of rivals as the race shifted to New Hampshire. Biden, who fell far short of expectations in Iowa, cast both Buttigieg and Sanders as risky choices for Democrats, given the former mayor’s relative inexperience and the senator’s descriptions of himself as a socialist.

Sanders is making his second run for the White House. He surprised many Democrats in 2016 with his strong challenge to Hillary Clinton, but entered the 2020 contest as a front-runner. He’s topped the field in fundraising, despite eschewing high-dollar donors.

Sanders and his supporters raised issues with the primary process after the 2016 election, prompting the Democratic National Committee to make changes that affected the Iowa reporting regulations.

As a result, Iowa released three sets of data from the caucuses: the tally of voter preferences at the start of the caucus; their preferences after supporters of candidates who reached less than 15% made a second choice; and the results of state delegate equivalents.

The final alignment results are used to determine state delegate equivalents, which is the metric the AP has long used to call the winner of the caucus. Democrats pick their nominee based on delegate totals.

With 97% of precincts reporting, Sanders is leading in the first alignment results and has a narrower edge in the final alignment.

Sanders and Buttigieg are nearly tied in Iowa with 97 percent reported

Brendan Morrow,The Week•February 6, 2020


With the New Hampshire primary just five days away, we still don't have a winner in Iowa.

After technical issues with a new app and long phone delays held up any Iowa caucus numbers until almost a full day later, as of Thursday morning, 97 percent of precincts have reported their results.

But the race is still too close to call, as former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg holds 26.2 percent of the delegates, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has 26.1 percent.

Meanwhile, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is at 18.2 percent, while former Vice President Joe Biden is in fourth place with 15.8 percent. Biden has admitted he "expected to do better" in Iowa, while his aides weren't so diplomatic, with one telling Politico his performance was nothing short of a "disaster."

Speaking of disasters, the Iowa Democratic Party on Wednesday released a new batch of results that they soon had to clarify needed a "minor correction." The incorrect results suddenly showed a surge in support for former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D), even though the Des Moines Register notes he wasn't even "actively competing for support" in Iowa. The Iowa Democrats soon issued correct results showing Patrick with no delegate equivalents.

CNN reports the Iowa Democratic Party is expecting to release the full results by Thursday morning.

The case for ending the Iowa caucuses

Mike Bebernes Editor,Yahoo News 360•February 5, 202

“The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and debates.

Biden's poor showing in Iowa shakes support
That leaves some establishment Democrats, including some Biden supporters, questioning his contention that he’ll reclaim frontrunner status in the race

What’s happening

For decades, Iowa’s position as first to vote in presidential primaries has empowered the state with an outsize ability to influence the race for the most important office in the nation. Iowa caucuses night is typically a time full of excitement and heartbreak as early victories and losses establish momentum for candidates' White House runs.

This year, however, the dominant emotion for Democratic presidential candidates was frustration. A new smartphone app that the 1,679 precincts in the state were supposed to use to tally their results failed, setting off a night filled with chaos and confusion. As of Wednesday morning, the full results had still not been released. With 71 percent of precincts reporting, Pete Buttigieg held a narrow lead, with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren close behind.

The mess is the most recent example of controversy that has become a pattern in the aftermath of the Iowa caucuses. In 2016, reports of irregularities in the voting process led to uncertainty over the results in a race that Hillary Clinton narrowly won against Bernie Sanders. In 2012, Mitt Romney was the initially named the winner of the Republican primary, only for Rick Santorum to be awarded the victory 16 days later.

Why there’s debate

Monday night’s missteps have brought long-simmering discontent with the Iowa caucuses to a boil. Complaints typically focus on two specific issues: the disproportionate influence the state has by going first and shortcomings of the complex caucus voting system. These two factors combine to inject undue importance on a discriminatory and unreliable process, critics argue.

Iowa’s population is 90 percent white. Giving a state that is much less diverse than the nation as a whole the opportunity to vote first disadvantages minority candidates and decreases the value of voters of color, some argue.

Voting in the caucuses is done in person and through a complicated system that includes multiple rounds of votes, cajoling between supporters of opposing candidates and, on occasion, coin flips. This process creates unnecessary confusion and disenfranchises those who can’t attend the vote on a specific night, particularly people with disabilities, critics say.

What’s next

A decision on whether Iowa will lose its first-in-the-nation status or switch to a more typical primary voting system likely won’t come for some time. President Trump responded to Monday’s events by promising to maintain the status quo. “As long as I am President, Iowa will stay where it is,” he tweeted.

Perspectives

No amount of rule adjustments can fix the caucuses“The clearest picture that will form is that for all their benefits to the state: the Iowa caucuses are, at their core, unworkable.” — Editorial, the Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)

Officials had years to prepare — and still failed

“Iowa’s Democratic Party had four whole years to prepare for last night’s caucuses. It knew there would be a multicandidate scramble to challenge President Trump. It nonetheless proved it was not up to the challenge of making the contest go smoothly.” — Editorial, Washington Examiner

The caucuses have been chaotic since their inception 150 years ago

“The Iowa caucuses have been a hot mess for more than a century. Adopted from the moment Iowa entered the union in 1846, the caucuses instantly became riddled with drama by inept and corrupt party leaders.” — Michael S. Rosenwald, Washington Post

The app mess accelerated the inevitable

“There can be no doubting it now, not after so many years spent in the crosshairs, not after active presidential candidates began challenging its privileged position atop the nominating calendar, and certainly not after Monday night’s debacle that left seven candidates and millions of viewers waiting for results that never came: Iowa’s reign is over.” — Tim Alberta, Politico

Iowa should switch to a primary

“It should go without saying that there is a better way to hold an election — the method used by the overwhelming majority of states. The state can simply pick a day to hold a primary, give voters a full day to cast ballots, and even allow voters who can’t make it on election day to vote early or absentee.” — Ian Millhiser, Vox

Caucuses are exclusionary and anti-democratic

“The caucuses — especially in this cursed year — demand hours of commitment. This limits the number, and kind, of people who can attend, despite Iowa Democrats allowing satellite caucuses this year. Many people who work at night still cannot attend. People who care for children or other relatives cannot attend. People who have other commitments cannot attend.” — Jeffrey Toobin, CNN

Iowa caucuses: Should a more diverse state vote first?

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/02/why-iowa-should-not-be-first-nor-caucus.html

UPDATED 
The case for ending the Iowa caucuses

WHY IOWA SHOULD NOT BE FIRST 
NOR A CAUCUS BASED PRIMARY

Iowa Caucus Night Is an Utter Disaster

FUBAR

What happened Monday evening bolsters the argument that the state should not have the first primary.
Matt Taylor
National Editor
Updated Feb. 04, 2020
ALSO WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER USE AN APP WITHOUT TESTING ITS CRASH ABILITIES AND LEARNING CURVE FAILURES

Democrats' bid to challenge Trump off to a messy start

The Democratic Party's effort to choose an election challenger to President Trump got off to a chaotic start in Iowa, with officials blaming "inconsistencies" for an indefinite delay in the state's caucus results.

 AP Explains: In Iowa, complex caucus now even more intricate

ALL OUT FAILURE TO HAVE A BACK UP SYSTEM (PHONE IN) AKA PLAN B, RELIANT ON NEW APP. TO SMART FOR THEIR OWN GOOD. PHONE IN WHICH HAS BEEN USED FOR YEARS, WAS UNDERMANNED AND QUICKLY JAMMED UP.

IOWA CAUCUSES ARE AS VESTIGIAL AS THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE THEY ARE BOTH OF THE HORSE AND BUGGY ERA.

Without Iowa Results, Everybody’s On Stage And A Winner On Caucus Night 🇺🇸

Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Joe Biden all spoke on live TV in glowing terms — without any results.

ByRosie Gray,Molly Hensley-Clancy,Henry J. Gomez,Nidhi Prakash•

An Iowa Caucus Official Was Hung Up On While Trying To Report His Precinct's Results

Stephanie K. Baer•  2 hours ago

The Iowa Caucus Results Are Still Delayed And Campaigns Are Angry

“This is an unbelievable explanation.”
Ruby CramerBuzzFeed News Reporter

Henry J. GomezBuzzFeed News ReporterReporting From Des Moines, Iowa
Last updated on February 4, 2020, at 2:50 a.m. ET

Joe Raedle / Getty Images


The Iowa Democratic Party is delaying releasing the results of Monday night’s Iowa caucus because of reporting inconsistencies, infuriating campaigns eager to move on with the election.

"We found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results,” IDP communications director Mandy McClure said in a statement. “In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate that all results match and ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report.”

McClure emphasized that this was not the result of a “hack or intrusion” and that the “underlying data and paper trail is sound.”

The IDP told campaigns in a call just after midnight Tuesday that they would release the results on Tuesday, according to two people on the call.

IDP chair Troy Price delivered a brief statement to reporters after 1 a.m., via conference call, echoing what he just told campaigns: The party experienced reporting issues, are verifying results against a "paper trail" and "back-up system," and the process is "taking longer than expected."

In an earlier short conference at around 10:30 p.m. in Des Moines on Monday, with representatives from each campaign, the IDP said they currently had just 35% of precinct numbers reported and that due to “user error” with their reporting app, they found some slight “inconsistencies,” according to participants on the call. Some numbers, the party said, “didn’t add up.”

The party told campaigns they were comparing the app results with cell phone pictures of the caucus paper worksheets, where caucus results are recorded manually by hand.

The IDP did not take any questions.

At one point, a participant could be heard shouting on the call: “This is an unbelievable explanation.” Another person chimed in, “I think he speaks for all of us.”

One campaign aide described the call as being “hung up” on.

Early Tuesday morning, after the second call, an aide with one of the campaigns told BuzzFeed News they were still unhappy. The IDP, the aide said, "provided no specificity" about when results would be released Tuesday, or how they would verify official results.

"It's not just the app that didn't work," the aide said. "There are numerous reports that precinct chairs did not gather preference cards from every caucus goer, precinct chairs that left because they couldn't report results. It's a real question on how results could be verified at all."

On Twitter and even on radio and television, local officials have reported hour-long hold times with the Iowa state party while trying to report results.

The Biden campaign’s general counsel, Dana Remus, sent a sternly worded letter to the state party’s top leaders Monday night, expressing frustration with “considerable flaws” in the reporting process.

“The app that was intended to relay Caucus results to the Party failed; the Party’s back-up telephonic reporting system likewise has failed,” Remus wrote. “Now, we understand that caucus chairs are attempting to — and, in many cases, failing to — report results telephonically to the party. These acute failures are occurring statewide.”

Remus also asked that official results not be released until campaigns had a chance to hear more about “quality control” measures and respond to such information. It was not immediately clear if the letter was sent before the conference call.

"The integrity of the process is critical, and there were flaws in the reporting systems tonight that should raise serious concerns for voters," Kate Bedingfield, Biden's deputy campaign manager, tweeted later.

J.D. Scholten, a Democratic congressional candidate in northern Iowa, was also perplexed by the glitches.

"I’m not sure what to make of it," Scholten told BuzzFeed News. "I tried reporting, but I was on hold forever, so I decided to hit up my favorite local bar."
MORE ON THIS

There Are No Official Iowa Caucus Results Yet Because The State Democratic Party Is Doing “Quality Control”Otillia Steadman · 10 hours ago


WARREN CAMPAIGN: 'INCOMPLETE NUMBERS CONTRIBUTE TO CHAOS'
With results delayed, Sanders claims lead as Iowa caucus turns into fiasco
After Democratic party suffers technical problems with results of first primary, Bernie campaign publishes its own unofficial tally, with Buttigieg 2nd, Biden 3rd and Warren 4th

By ELODIE CUZIN


Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, with wife Jane Sanders (R), addresses supporters during his caucus night watch party on February 03, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa (Joe Raedle/Getty Images/AFP)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AFP) — Iowa’s vote kick-starting the 2020 US presidential contest degenerated into a fiasco marred by major delays on Monday, with Bernie Sanders claiming a slim lead in the Democratic caucus citing partial unofficial results.

Figures released by the leftist senator’s campaign showed Pete Buttigieg in second spot, a strong showing for the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who was a national unknown just one year ago.

“Iowa, you have shocked the nation,” the 38-year-old gay military reservist told loudly cheering supporters in what sounded very much like a victory speech. “Because tonight, an improbable hope became an undeniable reality.”

With chaos on the ground as Democratic party officials reportedly told campaigns not to expect results before sometime Tuesday, Sanders, running as a democratic socialist, took to the microphones to proclaim he had “a good feeling we’re going to be doing very, very well here in Iowa.”

“Tonight in this enormously consequential 2020 election, the first state in the country has voted, and today marks the beginning of the end for Donald Trump,” said the 78-year-old.

Iowa is a closely watched test in the months-long process to determine who will face the Republican president in November.

Sanders later took the bold step of releasing internal, unpublished results from nearly 40 percent of precincts, showing him with 28.62 percent of the state delegate equivalent, the all-important figure used to determine who wins the Iowa caucuses.

Democratic presidential candidate former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg arrives at a watch party at Drake University on February 03, 2020 in Des Moines, Iowa (Win McNamee/Getty Images/AFP)

Buttigieg earned 25.71 percent, followed by progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren with 18.42 percent, the data indicated.

Former vice president Joe Biden, the national frontrunner, was in fourth spot, at 15.08 percent, a disappointing showing for the candidate who has consistently claimed he is the person best positioned to take on and defeat Trump.

The Warren campaign pushed back at Sanders’ move, with her chief strategist Joe Rospars tweeting: “Any campaign saying they won or putting out incomplete numbers is contributing to the chaos and misinformation.”

But as the waiting dragged on, with zero results reported, other candidates also made claims to have beaten expectations.

“I’m feeling good,” Biden said before Sanders released the internals. “So it’s on to New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, well beyond. We’re in this for the long haul.”

Democratic presidential candidate former vice president Joe Biden takes the stage to address supporters with his wife Dr. Jill Biden during his caucus night watch party on February 03, 2020 in Des Moines, Iowa (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/AFP)

New Hampshire votes second, on February 11, and tradition dictates that the top performers in Iowa board jets and race to The Granite State to capitalize on the momentum.

With the results in limbo, Senator Amy Klobuchar, from the neighboring Midwestern state of Minnesota, insisted “we are punching above our weight.”

Sanders’s data shows Klobuchar in fifth, at 10.93 percent.

The Iowa embarrassment is particularly bad timing, as US officials are under pressure to demonstrate the integrity of the voting system following 2016, when Russia stood accused of interfering in the presidential election in an effort to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.

In a statement read on US networks, Mandy McClure, communications director at the Iowa Democratic Party, said further checks were ordered after “inconsistencies” were found in the reporting of three sets of results.

“This is simply a reporting issue,” she said, denying there was “a hack or an intrusion.”

Biden’s campaign counsel Dana Remus wrote a stern letter to Iowa Democratic Party chair Troy Price complaining of the “considerable flaws” of the night’s caucus.

“We believe that the campaigns deserve full explanations and relevant information regarding the methods of quality control you are employing, and an opportunity to respond, before any official results are released.”

Republicans meanwhile rushed to suggest either incompetence or foul play by the Democratic leadership.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren takes the stage to address her supporters during a caucus night rally at the Forte Banquet and Conference Center February 03, 2020 in Des Moines, Iowa (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP)

“Democrat party meltdown,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a stinging tweet.

“They can’t even run a caucus and they want to run the government. No thank you.”

Trump — who has been weighed down by an impeachment process expected to end with his acquittal on Wednesday — is almost certain to mention the chaos on Tuesday night when he addresses Congress and the nation during his annual State of the Union speech.

Unlike secret ballot voting, Iowa caucus-goers publicly declare their choice by standing together with other supporters of a candidate. Candidates who reach 15 percent support earn delegates for the nomination race while supporters of candidates who fall short can shift to others.

It appeared the delays may have been exacerbated by new rules that the Democratic Party instituted after the 2016 election that now require caucuses to report three sets of numerical data throughout the process, rather than one set previously.

Held across nearly 1,700 sites, the Iowa vote offers a critical early look at the viability of the 11 Democrats still in the race — even though just 41 delegates are up for grabs, a fraction of the 1,991 needed to secure the nomination in July.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-app-that-disrupted-iowa-caucuses.html


SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/02/published-on-tuesday-february-04-2020.html

UPDATED
American Dirt,’ novel on migrants, ignites literary controversy

DEAR JOHN STEINBECK 

YOU ARE NOT AN OKIE SO WE CANNOT PUBLISH YOUR NOVEL; GRAPES OF WRATH

YOU ARE NOT NEANDERTHAL SO YOU CANNOT WRITE A NOVEL ABOUT PREHISTORIC MAMMOTH HUNTERS
The Clan of the Cave Bear - WikipediaThe Clan of the Cave Bear is an epic work of prehistoric fiction by Jean M. Auel about prehistoric times. It is the first book in the Earth's Children book series which speculates on the possibilities of interactions between Neanderthal and modern Cro-Magnon humans.

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DEMOCRACY NOW

Publisher Agrees to Boost Latinx Representation After Backlash to Whitewashed Novel “American Dirt”

STORYFEBRUARY 05, 2020

We look at the massive backlash and criticism against the novel “American Dirt” as a movement led by Latinx writers declares victory, demanding more representation in the publishing industry. Dignidad Literaria, or literary dignity, formed in response to the controversial immigration novel “American Dirt.” The author, Jeanine Cummins, who is not Mexican, received a seven-figure advance for the book, and it was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club. But its critics say “American Dirt” exploits and misrepresents Mexico and the experience of Mexican migrants. Critics also say the novel completely erases the voices of Central Americans. On Monday, the leaders of the literary dignity movement celebrated a successful meeting in New York City with the book’s publisher, Macmillan, the owner of Flatiron Books. The publisher agreed to expand Latinx representation in its staff and its publications. The campaign is also calling for an investigation into discriminatory practices in the publishing industry at large. We speak with two co-founders of Dignidad Literaria: in Los Angeles, Myriam Gurba, Chicana writer, podcaster and artist, who wrote the first viral review of “American Dirt” that ignited criticism of the book, and in New York City, Roberto Lovato, award-winning journalist and author of the forthcoming book “Unforgetting: A Memoir of Revolution and Redemption.”

February 1, 2020 By Agence France-Presse


Hailed by luminaries such as Stephen King and Oprah Winfrey, “American Dirt” was touted as the next “great American novel,” bought for a seven-figure advance, backed by aggressive marketing and launched last week to great fanfare in both English and Spanish.

Instead of glory, however, author Jeanine Cummins finds herself at the heart of a cultural maelstrom, accused by some of exploiting the tragedy of Mexican migrants in a US election year and of validating stereotypes such as those used by President Donald Trump to fuel his anti-immigration rhetoric.

The book tells the story of a Mexican woman who owns a bookshop and flees on the notoriously dangerous cargo train known as “The Beast” that migrants ride to the north. She also survives the slaughter of almost her entire family by drug traffickers at a traditional birthday celebration.

The book’s publication has generated intense debate about cultural appropriation, the marginalization of Hispanic authors by US publishers, the dangers of spreading misrepresentations and the responsible limits of fiction.

The firestorm took publisher Flatiron Books by surprise, and on Wednesday they canceled Cummins’ planned tour of US book stores.

“Based on specific threats to booksellers and the author, we believe there exists real peril to their safety,” said publisher Bob Miller in a statement.

– ‘Exploitative’ –

Horror supremo King described the book as “marvelous” and author Don Winslow compared it to the Steinbeck classic “The Grapes of Wrath”.

It is already being adapted for Hollywood.

But more than 120 writers, including Mexico’s leading novelist Valeria Luiselli and chicana author Myriam Gurba, whose withering review sparked the debate, have signed a letter calling on Oprah not to feature “American Dirt” in her book club, which has historically been a gateway to massive sales.

“This is not a letter calling for silencing, nor censoring,” said the writers, who called the novel “exploitative.”

“But in a time of widespread misinformation, fearmongering, and white-supremacist propaganda related to immigration and to our border, in a time when adults and children are dying in US immigration cages, we believe that a novel blundering so badly in its depiction of marginalized, oppressed people should not be lifted up,” the letter went on to say.

Mexican actress Salma Hayek put out a selfie of herself with the book, unaware of the controversy erupting around it, then quickly apologized for promoting it.

Photos that Cummins herself posted of a lobster luncheon for the book launch, featuring floral arrangements wreathed with barbed wire — a nod to the book’s cover — did little to help.

“Border chic,” said Gurba on Twitter. “Cruel” and “insensitive,” said the authors in their letter to Oprah.

– ‘Ignorance and negligence’ –

“This is a book that oversimplifies Mexico, uses bad Spanish, and in which the protagonist, a Mexican woman, does things that don’t make any sense for a Mexican,” said Ignacio Sanchez Prado, a professor of Latin American studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

An expert on Mexico, he told AFP he did not believe that only Mexicans can write about the Mexican experience but said that Cummins “did it badly.” He also laid the most blame on the “editorial process,” lashing out at Flatiron’s “ignorance and negligence.”

The author of the book, who describes herself as white but also “Latinx” because she has a Puerto Rican grandmother, has not alluded to the controversy in her posts on social media but told The New York Times “there is a danger sometimes of going too far toward silencing people.”

“No one intends to censor Ms Cummins,” said Daniel Olivas, author of a collection of poems about the US-Mexico border, and one of the signatories of the protest letter sent to Oprah.

“But the promotion of this book as the ‘Great American Novel’ and ‘a dazzling accomplishment’ of John Steinbeck proportions is simply galling when so many brilliant Latinx writers are given a mere fraction of such attention and monetary compensation,” he said.

Flatiron did not respond to an AFP request for comment on the controversy and an interview with the author.

The publishers said in a statement they were “proud” of the book, but Miller acknowledged that the controversy “has exposed deep inadequacies in how we at Flatiron Books address issues of representation.”

“We made serious mistakes in the way we rolled out this book,” Miller admitted.

“The concerns that have been raised, including the question of who gets to tell which stories, are valid ones in relation to literature and we welcome the conversation,” his statement said.

© 2020 AFP

Author tour for controversial ‘American Dirt’ is canceled
THE DAMAGE SOCIAL MEDIA FLOGGING CAN DO 

By HILLEL ITALIE

This cover image released by Flatiron Books shows "American Dirt," a novel by Jeanine Cummins. (Flatiron Books via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — The publisher of Jeanine Cummins’ controversial novel “American Dirt” has canceled the remainder of her promotional tour, citing concerns for her safety.

The novel about a Mexican mother and her young son fleeing to the U.S. border had been praised widely before its Jan. 21 release and was chosen by Oprah Winfrey for her book club. But Mexican American writers have been among those strongly criticizing “American Dirt” for stereotypical depictions of Mexicans. Cummins is of Irish and Puerto Rican background and had herself raised questions about the narrative, writing in an author’s note at the end of the book that she had wondered if “someone slightly browner than me” should have done it.

“Jeanine Cummins spent five years of her life writing this book with the intent to shine a spotlight on tragedies facing immigrants,” Bob Miller, president and publisher of Flatiron Books, said in a statement Wednesday. “We are saddened that a work of fiction that was well-intentioned has led to such vitriolic rancor.

“Unfortunately, our concerns about safety have led us to the difficult decision to cancel the book tour.”

Flatiron Books is instead hoping to organize a series of town hall discussions.

Cummins, 45, had made a handful of promotional appearances since her book was released, but over the past few days the St. Louis-based Left Bank Books had called off an event and Flatiron had canceled interviews in California. The tour for her heavily promoted book had been scheduled to last at least through mid-February, with planned stops everywhere from Seattle to Oxford, Mississippi.

RELATED STORIES:

• – Winfrey chooses the novel "American Dirt" for her book club
• – 'American Dirt' Latino backlash part of long publishing war

Miller says that the town hall gatherings would include Cummins and her critics, calling it “an opportunity to come together and unearth difficult truths to help us move forward as a community.” On Wednesday, a spokesperson for Winfrey confirmed that Winfrey will meet as planned with the author next month and that the discussion will air in March on Apple TV Plus. “American Dirt” was the third novel picked by Winfrey since she began a partnership with Apple last year.

Earlier Wednesday, dozens of authors, including Valeria Luiselli, Viet Thanh Nguyen and Tommy Orange, published an open letter to Winfrey that urged her to reconsider her selection of Cummins’ novel.

“The book club provides a seal of approval that can still, we hope, be changed,” they wrote. “Good intentions do not make good literature particularly not when the execution is so faulty, and the outcome so harmful.”

Winfrey first chose “American Dirt” last fall, before any criticism had emerged and acknowledged in a pre-publication interview with the AP that she was unaware of any controversy. She has since posted a video on Instagram, saying that she had been following the debate and hoped for a broad discussion.

“I’ve spent the past few days listening to members of the Latinx community to get a greater understanding of their concerns, and I hear them. I do,” Winfrey said in the video. “What I want to do is bring people together from all sides to talk about this book.”

“American Dirt” has dramatized ongoing issues of diversity in publishing that mirror criticisms of Hollywood. From publishers and editors to booksellers and agents, the book industry is predominantly white. Miller acknowledged that the novel “exposed deep inadequacies” at Flatiron and apologized for how the novel was promoted.

“We should never have claimed that it was a novel that defined the migrant experience; we should not have said that Jeanine’s husband was an undocumented immigrant while not specifying that he was from Ireland,” he wrote. He also referred to a picture that surfaced on social media from a promotional dinner last May, when table centerpieces included barbed wire decorations based on the book’s cover image.

“We can now see how insensitive those and other decisions were, and we regret them,” Miller said.

Flatiron is a division of Macmillan and has had authors ranging from former Vice President Joe Biden to Winfrey, who also has her own imprint at Flatiron that is releasing an Alicia Keys memoir in March.

One of Cummins’ leading detractors, Myriam Gurba, tweeted Wednesday that she, too, had security concerns. She wrote she had received death threats because of her criticisms and added “Let’s talk about the SAFETY of MIGRANTS and LATINX ppl. That’s what that book was intended to do, right?”

Cummins was defended by Ann Patchett, the author and bookstore owner who runs Parnassus Books in Nashville and gave the book an early blurb. In an email to The Associated Press, she wrote that Cummins had done a “beautiful job talking about the journey she’s been on with this book,” but that she understood the decision to end the tour.---30---“For the record, I loved ‘American Dirt.’ I’ve never in my life seen this kind of public flogging,” she wrote.

Despite the criticism, Cummins’ novel was easily the top-selling work of fiction last week, according to NPD BookScan, which tracks around 85 percent of the print market. “American Dirt” sold more than 48,000 copies during its first week, even topping Delia Owens’ blockbuster “Where the Crawdads Sing,” which sold just under 25,000 copies.

Why people are mad about 'American Dirt,' a new novel about a Mexican family's journey to the US
Ashley Collman

A woman looks at a copy of "American Dirt," at a bookstore in New York on January 27. 2020. LAURA BONILLA CAL/AFP via Getty Images

There has been widespread backlash to the new novel "American Dirt," by Jeanine Cummins.
The novel traces a Mexican mother and son's journey to the US.
Multiple Latinx writers have questioned how Cummins wrote the story and whether it was hers to tell.
Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

"American Dirt" by Jeanine Cummins. Flatiron BooksIn the last week, you may have noticed a new book becoming the topic of many heated conversations.

"American Dirt," the new novel by Jeanine Cummins, traces the journey a mother and son make to the US, after a cartel kills their family in a massacre at a quinceañera.

The outrage has focused on Cummins, who is of mixed Irish and Puerto Rican heritage, writing about the Mexican and migrant experiences. The fervor reached a critical point on Wednesday, when her publisher, Flatiron Books, decided to cancel the rest of the book tour.

Here's what sparked the backlash.

American Dirt was set to be one of the biggest book releases of the year

Cummins was paid a rare $1 million advance for the book, and Oprah Winfrey chose it as her first book club pick of 2020 — something that almost guarantees a bestseller.

High-profile fellow authors such as John Grisham and Stephen King gave it rave reviews.

"The very best novel I've read about immigrants (and the best novel I've read over the past year)," columnist Barbara Lane wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle.

She added: "'American Dirt' is being compared to 'The Grapes of Wrath,' and the comparison is apt."
But as the book was set to be released, criticism started coming out

Mexican-American author Myriam Gurba was one of the first to give the book a bad review, writing on the blog Tropics of Meta.

In her review, Gurba accuses Cummins of appropriating Latinx culture (Cummins has a Puerto Rican grandmother), filling her book with Mexican stereotypes, and heavily borrowing from other books about the immigrant experience.

"Cummins bombards with clichés from the get-go. Chapter One starts with assassins opening fire on a quinceañera, a fifteenth birthday party, a scene one can easily imagine President Donald Trump breathlessly conjuring at a Midwestern rally, and while Cummins' executioners are certainly animated, their humanity remains shallow," Gurba wrote.
 

Jeanine Cummins speaks at a Washington, DC bookstore on January 22. 

She continued: "By categorizing these characters as 'the modern bogeymen of urban Mexico,' she flattens them. By invoking monsters with English names and European lineages, Cummins reveals the color of her intended audience: white."

David Bowles, a Mexican-American poet, wrote in a Medium post on January 18 that "American Dirt" is "harmful, appropriating, inaccurate, trauma-porn melodrama."

Soon others were piling onto the book on social media

—Silvia Moreno-Garcia (@silviamg) January 26, 2020
—Kath Barbadoro (@kathbarbadoro) January 30, 2020

Then a rash of opinion pieces came out trying to explain the scandal
Former undocumented Mexican immigrant Julissa Arce wrote on BuzzFeed: "As a Latina writer, my petitions were for us to be seen, heard, and understood. For our talent to be recognized and our stories to be honored — for our lived experiences to create a better reality for our community. Jeanine Cummins' novel American Dirt — or 'The Grapes of Wrath for our times,' according to author Don Winslow — is neither the dream I had hoped for nor the vehicle that is going to create the type of change our community deserves."

Tina Vasquez pointed out in the Boston Globe that the majority of migrants who try to cross the US-Mexico border are from Central America, and not Mexico, like the characters in Cummins' novel. "This may seem like a small point of contention, but it seems illustrative of the larger criticism surrounding the novel."
The Los Angeles Times' Esmeralda Bermudez wrote that the book made her "cringe" because she realized it "was not written for people like me," immigrants, but "for everyone else — to enchant them, take them on a wild border-crossing ride, make them feel all fuzzy inside about the immigrant plight. All, unfortunately, with the worst stereotypes, fixations, and inaccuracies about Latinos."

Cummins also faced accusations of plagiarism

On January 24, author David J. Schmidt wrote on the Huffington Post that some of the scenes in "American Dirt" reminded him of nonfiction books he had read.

He said when he first read a scene in "American Dirt" about a boy being crushed to death by a garbage truck, it immediately reminded him of a section in Luis Alberto Urrea's book "By the Lake of Sleeping Children," which is about the author's years of humanitarian work in Tijuana, Mexico.

"Other scenes in 'American Dirt' also bear significant similarity to Urrea's work, and to that of Sonia Nazario, whose 2006 narrative nonfiction book, 'Enrique's Journey,' tells the story of a boy who migrates from Honduras to the United States atop the freight train known as La Bestia," Schmidt wrote.
Some people were angered to learn that Cummins' former illegal immigrant husband was actually from Ireland

Omar El Akkad, one of the authors who wrote advance praise for the book, took to Twitter on Tuesday to say he felt gaslighted by the publisher.

"Through very careful language, the marketing copy for American Dirt implied that the author not only had a personal connection to the material, but that her husband himself had an even more direct connection, being an illegal immigrant himself."

He added: "A few weeks later, I learned the marketing copy was all bull----. There is no personal connection. The author's husband immigrated here from... Ireland."
—sarah j. dudski (@dudski) January 29, 2020
Cummins' barbed wire nail art and book party centerpieces, modeled off her cover, didn't help
—oliver merino (@olivermerino4) January 23, 2020
—Alex P 👹 (@SaddestRobots) January 31, 2020
Some of the people who spoke out said their issue was not with the book, but the lack of diversity it showed in the publishing industry
—viet thanh nguyen (@viet_t_nguyen) January 30, 2020
—Bree Newsome Bass (@BreeNewsome) January 24, 2020
—Aura Bogado (@aurabogado) January 24, 2020

On Wednesday, dozens of authors signed a letter asking Oprah to cancel 'American Dirt' as her book club pick

"This is not a letter calling for silencing, nor censoring," the letter reads. "But in a time of widespread misinformation, fearmongering, and white-supremacist propaganda related to immigration and to our border, in a time when adults and children are dying in US immigration cages, we believe that a novel blundering so badly in its depiction of marginalized, oppressed people should not be lifted up."

Oprah responded with a video on Tuesday, saying she didn't plan to cancel the book but would be having a special discussion about it in March.

"It has become clear to me from the outpouring of very passionate opinions that this selection has struck an emotional chord and created a need for a deeper more substantive discussion," Oprah said.
Cummins' publisher eventually canceled her book tour

In an announcement on Wednesday, Bob Miller, the president and publisher of Flatiron Books, said they would be canceling the rest of the book tour because of safety concerns.

Miller said the negative reaction caught them by surprise and "exposed deep inadequacies in how we at Flatiron Books address issues of representation." He continued:

"On a more specific scale we made serious mistakes in the way we rolled out this book. We should never have claimed that it was a novel that defined the migrant experience; we should not have said that Jeanine's husband was an undocumented immigrant while not specifying that he was from Ireland; we should not have had a centerpiece at our bookseller dinner last May that replicated the book jacket so tastelessly. We can now see how insensitive those and other decisions were, and we regret them."

However, Miller said they were planning town hall events where Cummins will discuss the book with some of the "groups who have raised objections" to it.
A few people have defended Cummins

Oprah Winfret, left, appears on CBS This Morning with Jeanine Cummins, second left, to promote her new book club pick, "American Dirt," on January 21. CBS via Getty

Washington Post book critic Ron Charles found the focus on Cummins' ancestry startling. He wrote:

"Cummins has been attacked for exaggerating her ethnic background and for failing to note that her Irish husband — once an illegal immigrant — didn't belong to a sufficiently repressed minority group. (That complaint is so clouded by historical amnesia that I don't know where to start.)

"Listening to the anger directed at Cummins for having only one Latina grandparent, I suppose future novelists will have to submit their manuscripts along with a 23andMe genetic profile."

Author Ann Patchett also defended Cummins in an email to the Associated Press, saying that she did a "beautiful job talking about the journey she's been on with this book."

"For the record, I loved 'American Dirt,' I've never in my life seen this kind of public flogging," Patchett wrote.
What Cummins has said

At an event at the Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C., on January 22, Cummins said she put a lot of work into the book:

"I did five years of research. I went to the border. I went to Mexico. I traveled throughout the borderlands. I visited Casa del Migrante in Mexico. I visited orphanages. I volunteered at a desayunador, which is like a soup kitchen for migrants. I met with the people who have devoted their lives on the front line to the work of protecting vulnerable people. ... And despite the fact that it has grown into this crazy moment that I never anticipated and that feels as if I'm in the eye of the hurricane, I know for a fact that this book is moving people."

The outage doesn't seem to have impacted sales

Flatiron increased the first printing to 500,000 books from 300,000, and the book appeared on more than a dozen lists of anticipated books for 2020, according to The New York Times.

For the week of January 26, it was the top-selling fiction book on Amazon. It's also at the top of the Times' best-seller list.


BOOKS UPDATED JAN. 30, 2020

Why Is Everyone Arguing About the Novel American Dirt?
By Rebecca Alter

American Dirt was released on January 21, 2020. Photo: Vulture

On January 21, Oprah Winfrey announced her latest Oprah’s Book Club pick, the new novel American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. Winfrey tweeted: “From the first sentence, I was IN … Like so many of us, I’ve read newspaper articles and watched television news stories and seen movies about the plight of families looking for a better life, but this story changed the way I see what it means to be a migrant in a whole new way.” Winfrey also posted a video of her endorsement to the Oprah’s Book Club Twitter account, saying, “I was opened, I was shook up, it woke me up, and I feel that everybody who reads this book is actually going to be immersed in the experience of what it means to be a migrant on the run for freedom. So I want you to read. Come read with us, and then join the conversation with Jeanine Cummins on Apple TV+ coming this March.”


Hello, fellow book lovers! My next @oprahsbookclub selection is “American Dirt” by @jeaninecummins. From the first sentence, I was IN. pic.twitter.com/uonqIa3QRK— Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) January 21, 2020


Our next book club selection is “American Dirt” by @jeaninecummins. It’s a heart-wrenching page-turner, and you won’t be able to put it down.

Download your copy on @applebooks and #ReadWithUs: https://t.co/w62380H4Lz #AmericanDirt@Flatironbooks @Oprah pic.twitter.com/v6K23tEyPM— Oprah's Book Club (@oprahsbookclub) January 21, 2020

Book Twitter reacted to the announcement with swiftness, although perhaps not in the way Oprah’s team would have wanted, citing the recent #OwnVoices movement. American Dirt has been the subject of controversy and criticism since 2019, when early readers first offered their opinions after seeing advance copies. The book has been called “stereotypical,” and “appropriative” for “opportunistically, selfishly, and parasitically” telling the fictional story of a Mexican mother and son’s journey to the border after a cartel murders the rest of their family. One of the more common knocks is that the book engages in “brownface,” incorporating a nominally Mexican perspective that was written by a woman who — as recently as 2016 — identified as “white.” In the lead-up to American Dirt’s release, Cummins revealed she has a Puerto Rican grandmother. The conversation surrounding American Dirt’s “ripped from the headlines” approach to telling this migrant story in an American voice for American readers places it within ongoing debates in the lit world about who can tell what stories.

Some professional critics also had at American Dirt in the days before its January 21 release. New York Times book critic Parul Sehgal said that the “rapturous and demented praise” the book has received in the press might be owed in part to the fact that “tortured sentences aside, American Dirt is enviably easy to read” and “determinedly apolitical. The deep roots of these forced migrations are never interrogated; the American reader can read without fear of uncomfortable self-reproach.” Some of that praise also comes from the Times; in the Book Review, Lauren Groff was ultimately ambivalent but called the book “propulsive” and “swift,” and regarded its polemical “uncomplicated moral universe” as a feature rather than a bug. Groff (who, for the record, is white) praises Cummins’s efforts and excuses her appropriation, whereas Sehgal (who is not) questions Cummins’s stated motivation in writing this story:
Shouldn’t the story matter, her effort to individuate people portrayed as a “faceless brown mass” (her words)? In the book’s afterword, she agonizes about not being the right person to write the book (“I wished someone slightly browner than me would write it”) but decides that she has a moral obligation to the story.

Groff caused an even further Twitter stir when the New York Times Books account tweeted a link to her review with this (since-deleted) pull quote: “‘American Dirt’ is one of the most wrenching books I have read in a few years, with the ferocity and political reach of the best of Theodore Dreiser’s novel.” Groff responded: “Please take this down and post my actual review.” Apparently this quote was from an “early version” of her review, to which she had made “radical changes.” Still, this gaffe was enough to ignite Twitter discourse about who should have the platform to review certain stories, in addition to who should write them.


https://t.co/dlJZWJHFxL pic.twitter.com/egaYkd7BGT— bradley babendir (@therealbradbabs) January 19, 2020

After Oprah announced Jeanine Cummins’s controversial American Dirt as her latest Book Club pick, immigration reporter Aura Bogado shared a tweet the author posted back in November, showcasing a “pretty” nail-art interpretation of her book jacket, which features a barbed-wire design. Bogado critiqued Cummins’s “vulgar pleasure of proudly wearing this exact symbol of oppression as a fashion statement,” sparking a new wave of outrage over what’s seen as a blatant visual representation of how Cummins is insensitively capitalizing on immigrant trauma.


Jeanine Cummins got a barbwire manicure. The fetish here, the vulgar pleasure of proudly wearing this exact symbol of oppression as a fashion statement and claiming it's "pretty," is literally making me nauseous. I wanna throw up. https://t.co/AdOlPwz6mw— Aura Bogado (@aurabogado) January 23, 2020


What is wrong with all of you? Barbed wire manis? Are you intentionally trolling for bad press or just legit this dumb and or like actually cruel?— Chelsea Peretti (@chelseaperetti) January 23, 2020

Then on January 26, Oprah posted a two-minute video to the Oprah’s Book Club Instagram, announcing that as a response to the “outpouring … of very passionate opinions,” she spoke with members of the Latinx community about their concerns with American Dirt and will air an Apple TV+ event in March to “bring people together from all sides to talk about this book, and who gets to publish what stories. I’m hoping that that is going to resonate with many of you and your concerns.”

After this announcement, writers Roberto Lovato, David Bowles, and Myriam Gurba began tweeting under the hashtag #DignidadLiteraria as a “call to politico-literary action,” and many authors and activists are using the hashtag along with #ownvoices in their calls for better representation. Vox reported that Immigrant Youth Group United We Dream is petitioning Oprah to include more Latinx and immigrant authors in the Book Club. On January 27, the Oprah’s Book Club Instagram account moved forward as usual, posting the reading schedule for American Dirt. The account posted the schedule with the caption: “Over the next several weeks we will be using this platform to share a diverse array of content, including books by Mexican and Latinx authors. More to come.”

On January 29, American Dirt’s publisher Flatiron Books released a statement from its president, Bob Miller, about how they were “surprised by the anger that has emerged from members of the Latinx and publishing communities” in response to the book’s release and Flatiron’s role in tone-deaf publicity. Miller acknowledges “serious mistakes,” such as barbed-wire centerpieces at a bookseller dinner, and that they “should not have said that Jeanine’s husband was an undocumented immigrant while not specifying that he was from Ireland.” In the statement, Miller announced that Flatiron will cancel the book tour, citing “concerns about safety” and “specific threats to booksellers and the author.”


Statement from Bob Miller (President & Publisher, Flatiron Books) regarding AMERICAN DIRT: pic.twitter.com/S4sQetyS2s— Flatiron Books (@Flatironbooks) January 29, 2020

Many replies to this statement find it to be inadequate, using language of “white privilege,” “victimhood,” and “dog whistling” to frame Latinx concerns about the book as violent and scary, rather than simply writing an apology with a promise to improve their practices. Many commenters took issue with passages from the statement, like “it’s unfortunate that she is the recipient of hatred from within the very communities she sought to honor. We are saddened that a work of fiction that was well-intentioned has led to such vitriolic rancor.”


Flatiron Books: “We apologize...”

“Well that’s a start.”

Flatiron Books: “...for how savage & horrible black and brown people in the Latinx community are acting towards us.” pic.twitter.com/3gLSO6tUGU— X (@XLNB) January 30, 2020


Just say you messed up. Organziers, activists, writers like us who are also committed to social justice and change do not threaten harm the fact that you are using this stereotype to cancel the tour reinforces your unwillingness to be accountable.— Rosa A. Clemente (@rosaclemente) January 29, 2020

At the end of the statement, Miller announced that in place of the book tour, Flatiron Books will organize a town-hall series “where Jeanine will be joined by some of the groups who have raised objections to the book.” There are no further details yet about this series of meetings.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, American Dirt has already been optioned for a movie adaptation by Charles Leavitt, the writer of Blood Diamond, and Imperative Entertainment, the production company behind Clint Eastwood’s The Mule. While you wait for that come out, you can add your name to a 150-plus person hold list for American Dirt at your local library and catch Oprah’s Apple TV+ feature on it in March.

This post has been updated throughout.
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Opinion

‘American Dirt’ Has Us Talking. That’s a Good Thing.

The publishing industry changed its opinion of Mexican immigrant stories only after someone outside our community wrote one.By Reyna Grande
Ms. Grande is a Mexican-American author.
Jan. 30, 2020

A portion of the United States-Mexico border fence in El Paso.

Credit...Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times

Last fall, I was sent an advance copy of Jeanine Cummins’s new novel, “American Dirt,” and a request for an endorsement. As a Mexican-American woman and an immigrant, it was clear to me that I was not the intended audience for this story. And yet, I found it compelling. I noticed its shortcomings, the things she got wrong about our culture and experience, but saw past them. I felt that a book like this could complement the Latino immigrant literature that has and will continue to be written by Latino writers, myself included.

I was born in Mexico, in the troubled state of Guerrero, where the main characters of “American Dirt” are from. It was in my hometown, Iguala, where 43 college students were abducted and disappeared in 2014, so the violence rang true to me. I am a native Spanish speaker, but my own books are riddled with Spanish mistakes because I was in fifth grade when I came to the United States.

I hoped that “American Dirt” would generate more discussion about the border and the anti-immigrant mentality that has dominated our society for too long. And it is doing just that, but in an unexpected way. It is raising awareness about another kind of border — the walls that the publishing industry puts up for Latino writers.

I’m no stranger to borders. When I was 9, I left my home in Guerrero and risked my life to cross the United States-Mexico border on foot with my father and siblings. With the help of the coyote, the guide my father hired, we got past la migra, the border agents patrolling the unforgiving no man’s land just north of the border with Tijuana. After we crossed, the coyote drove us up Interstate 5 to our new home in Los Angeles. I remember sighing with relief, thinking the worst was behind me.

I was wrong. I learned that American society is very good at hindering its immigrant population by putting up barriers — real and metaphorical. I soon discovered there were more borders to cross — cultural, linguistic, legal, educational, economic and more. When I chose to pursue a career in writing, a field that is predominantly white, I realized that the publishing industry too had borders and people who patrol them. A 2019 survey of diversity in publishing found that 78 percent of executives, 85 percent of editors, 80 percent of critics and 80 percent of agents are white.

Once upon a time, being a border crosser was a source of shame for me. But when I got older, I realized that it was my superpower. When I began my journey toward my dream of writing professionally, I told myself, “If I could successfully cross the U.S.-Mexico border, I can cross any border!”

It took me three tries to cross that geographical border. It took me 27 attempts to get past the gatekeepers of the publishing industry who time and time again make Latino writers feel that our stories don’t matter. We are often told that there are no readers for our immigrant tales, that “these kinds” of stories about our pain and suffering don’t sell well, that immigrant stories have been told enough times and why can’t we write something new and different, something more marketable?

After 26 rejections, I finally got across the publishing border because an African-American editor felt that my novel about a Mexican immigrant girl was worthy of being read, that my voice deserved to be heard. She gave me a $20,000 book deal and her blessing.

I considered myself lucky. There are so many more Latino writers who never get across — whose writing dreams perish in the unwelcoming literary landscape.

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For the last 13 years, I’ve traveled the country talking about my immigrant experience. On stages across the United States, I bare my soul and relive the trauma of moments I’d rather forget, to help people understand that immigration is not a crime but an act of survival, that immigrants are not criminals but human beings who deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion.




The cover of “American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins.Credit...Flatiron Books, via Associated Press

Sometimes, my words help open minds and hearts. Other times, they don’t. Recently, “The Moth Radio Hour” aired my story about a chance encounter on an airplane with a Guatemalan asylum seeker. An email later appeared in my inbox, and when I read it, I thought of “American Dirt” and its intended white audience:

You are an excellent speaker and clearly very sincere. However, I and many others completely disagree with your point of view. Illegals in the country, that is adults that came into the USA without proper permission should all be deported as soon as practicable and there never should be any amnesty in the future for anybody [shouldn’t have happened in the past eather] the young man you talked about should have been removed and sent back to where he came from, I do not want him here in my country. and no Dreamers that came here illegally should never be allowed to be citizens. And if it was up to me their children would not be alow to become citizens ether.

Maybe I am being naïve in thinking that this man and others like him might be more willing to show compassion toward immigrants if they heard it from someone other than a first- or second-generation immigrant. But after having spent my entire writing career advocating immigrant rights, I appreciate when another writer joins the fight. We need all the voices we can get, within and outside our community — perhaps especially from outside our community. I had hoped Ms. Cummins’s words would germinate in the toxic American dirt where my own words, and those of other Latino writers, have often failed to take root.

When I read “American Dirt,” I didn’t know the back story — the bidding war, the seven-figure advance, the proclamation that this was the immigration book of its time. When I found out, I confess it offended me and hurt me. I felt undervalued and deceived. The publishing industry had changed its opinion of Mexican immigrant stories — but not until it was someone from outside our community who had written one. I had seen Ms. Cummins as a writer who could speak with us, not for us. Instead, the publishing machine decided to put her book on a pedestal.

It is unfortunate that the publisher canceled the author’s future book events. That denies audiences across the country the opportunity to participate in face-to-face discussions with Ms. Cummins about the issues that are being raised around cultural appropriation and who gets to tell our stories. The reasons the publisher cited for the cancellation — “safety concerns” — and its dismissal of the legitimate concerns raised as “vitriolic rancor,” further denigrates the Latino community. Now is not the time to shut down conversations, but to encourage speaking out and listening to one another.

To me the issue is neither with the book nor its author, but rather with those institutions that silence some voices while elevating others. One positive outcome is that publishers have shown they are willing to pay top dollar and use the full strength of their marketing machine to promote the immigrant experience. They can’t back away from that now. Immigrant-written stories deserve the same treatment.

Related
‘American Dirt’ Publisher Cancels Book TourJan. 29, 2020


Opinion | David Bowles

‘American Dirt’ Is Proof the Publishing Industry Is BrokenJan. 27, 2020

As ‘American Dirt’ Racks Up Sales, Its Author Becomes the Story Jan. 25, 2020

\Reyna Grande, @reynagrande, is the author of “A Dream Called Home.”

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