I don’t read a whole lot of fiction, maybe 3-4 books per year, but American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins was a captivating and worthwhile read. It’s sad but hopeful, sinister but triumphant. You get bits and parts of the worst that humanity has to offer, but also the best: the love, the charity, the enduring motivation for a better life.
Without giving anything away, the book chronicles the perilous journey of a mother and her young son who are on the run from a drug cartel in Acapulco, desperately seeking the refuge that is assumed to exist on the other side of the border; on American dirt. With a brooding sense of danger and urgency lurking ubiquitously right from the first page, American Dirt opens the door into a gritty and insidious underworld that is antithetical to the postcard-esque beauty that is offered by Mexican beaches, sunsets and palm trees.
I also think it shows a side of the immigration discussion that is probably the most important, but often the least discussed: the human side.
Every four years the issue of immigration enters into the mainstream zeitgeist and more or less gets reduced to a few sound bites from a political debate stage, usually about budgets, walls and homeland security. But rarely, if ever, does the conversation reach down and touch the desperation of the REAL HUMAN BEINGS that are experiencing dire and unsafe living conditions. To these people, the logical and “best” option is to abandon everything and risk their lives, hoping to survive long enough to be rewarded with the arduous and unenviable task of starting from scratch.
The immigration conversation is often framed as if everybody pouring into the country is looking for a free lunch and cheap rent on Easy Street, but it completely disregards WHY somebody would be willing to completely relinquish the only life they've ever known.
For many of us, American Dirt is just a fiction novel that we can pass around to friends or put back on our shelf to collect dust, but for so many others it reflects an anxious struggle and a dangerous reality. The least we can do is show some compassion and keep our hearts open for all of those children and families that are holed up on the southern border, praying that one day they'll be able to plant roots in American dirt.
8.1/10
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