Rocio Villalobos 
MCALLEN – This novel written by American author Jeanine Cummins telling the story of an undocumented Mexican woman living in the U.S. has prompted the creation of the group and social movement: Dignidad Literaria.
“We’re underrepresented and made to tell only certain kinds of stories and show up only in entertainment in certain ways. Yet someone from the outside can come in and write a book and make a lot of money off of it and people praise her and celebrate her book. And it’s kind of disgusting frankly,” said David Bowles.
UTRGV Professor and author David Bowles is a founding member of Dignidad Literaria who says that American Dirt was so upsetting because it fails to accurately portray Mexican culture and promotes harmful stereotypes of the country.
While Bowles believes it’s possible for non-Hispanic or Latino authors to effectively tell the stories of immigrants, he says Cummins got it wrong.
“You need to live in and among those people for long periods of time,” he said. “To need to have conversations every single day for months and months and years and years to really get to understand people, especially when they’re people not only not from your culture but not from your country.”
Oprah Winfrey selected the best-seller for her book club and the McAllen Public Library was chosen to promote the book in collaboration with the book club and the American Library Association, but declined. However, they do have copies of the book available for checking out. A friend of the library, Bowles explains why:
“They’re not keeping people from reading it. They just don’t want to be part of a promotional effort for a book that many people consider to be harmful, disrespectful, misappropriating of Mexican and Mexican-American experiences.”
After reaching out to Macmillan Publishers, Bowles and the other founders of Dignidad Literaria met with the president and staff of the company, as well as representatives from Oprah in New York for a two-hour conversation on how to improve Latino representation in publishing.
As much as the group disproves of American Dirt, Bowles says they found a silver lining in the upsetting situation.
“This is a dark cloud for publishing and it is indicative of a bigger problem but it certainly has served as a catalyst for having deeper conversations about what the real issues are. In that respect, I’m glad a conversation arose out of this,” said Bowles.
Dignidad Literaria walked away with an agreement that the publishers would increase Latino representation in their editorial staff, in the books they publish and come up with a plan on how to do so within 90 days. If interested in reading the book, Bowles cautions people who are unfamiliar with Mexico read it alongside a book from a Mexican-American author for a well-rounded view.
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