This is likeGone With the Windfor brown people.
Nothing wrong with a non-Mexican writing about the plight of Mexicans, he wrote.
Whats wrong is erasing authentic voices to sell her inaccurate cultural appropriation for millions.
Oprah Winfrey addresses controversial January 2020 book club pick, ‘American Dirt’.Bryan Bedder/Getty Images; Flatiron Books
Chicana author Myriam Gurba called the novel dangerous, cruel and smug in a tweet.
By categorizing these characters as the modern bogeymen of urban Mexico, she flattens them.
Mexicans dont fear the bogeyman.
We fear his very distant cousin, el cucuy.
I am an immigrant.
The terror, the loss, the injustice of this experience shaped everything about me.
Neither is any immigrant Ive known in 17 years of journalism.
Its the great world novel!
This is the international story of our times.
AndIn the Time of the Butterfliesauthor Julia Alvarez further called the book riveting, timely, a dazzling accomplishment.
Jeanine Cummins makes us all live and breathe the refugee story.
I wished someone slightly browner than me would write it.
In an interview with Cummins and Winfrey onCBSThis Morning,Gayle King seemed to dismiss the critics.
I was worried that I didnt know enough, that my privilege would make me blind to certain truths.
Winfrey also revealed that she plans to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border to film the book club forApple TV+.
American Dirtis now available for purchase.
EW has reached out to reps for Cummins and Winfrey for further comment.
