猫咪社区

As the drugstore cashier bags my tube of bikini shave gel, she squints at me. A spark of recognition lights up her face, warning me that the privilege of anonymously shopping for toiletries won鈥檛 be mine today.

鈥淵ou鈥檙e the lady who鈥檚 got beef with Oprah!鈥� the cashier announces.

Sighing, I reply, 鈥淵es, I鈥檓 the lady with the beef.鈥�

My carne is large and literary. I鈥檝e got beef with the entire publishing industry and Spanglishly calling out its racism landed me at the center of this year鈥檚 biggest literary scandal.

The shitstorm began in December when an academic blog, Tropics of Meta, published my essay 鈥� This piece of cultural criticism examined the racism in Jeanine Cummins鈥� schlocky narco-thriller American Dirt.

The book鈥檚 plot follows Lydia Quixano P茅rez, a 鈥渕oderately attractive but not beautiful [Mexican] woman,鈥� who dodges bullets during a cartoonish massacre in Acapulco. Lydia and her surviving son, Luca, flee to 鈥渆l norte鈥� to escape cartel assassins. They terrorize her by leaving a note on her car that reads, 鈥淏oo.鈥�

Mexican ghosts do not say boo. They weep. Cummins would know that had she done proper research. Her publisher, Flatiron Books, a division of Macmillan, could have caught the book鈥檚 many gringisms had they hired a Mexicanist editor to correct her prose.

I鈥檇 suggested in my essay that American Dirt would be a perfect read for self-righteous gringa book clubs. On January 21, Oprah announced she鈥檇 chosen it for hers. Over the next several weeks, outrage against Cummins, Flatiron, and Oprah mounted. More than 140 writers, including Viet Thanh Nguyen, Roxane Gay, and Rebecca Solnit, petitioned Oprah to remove her book club imprimatur from American Dirt. A social movement, #DignidadLiteraria, emerged.

Dignidad Literaria seeks to hold the publishing industry accountable for its racism. It also seeks to promote Latinx voices, in particular Central-American and Mexican voices that often go ignored by the publishing houses making up the Big Five: Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster. On Feb. 4, the movement secured from Macmillan and Flatiron to increase Latinx representation among their staff and the authors they publish.

The Latinx demand to be part of the national literature shook White gatekeepers. From coast to coast, the most scandalized among them banged out editorials expressing panicked concern for themselves, Cummins鈥� safety, and the White imagination. People of color did the opposite.

By and large, thinkers and writers of color condemned the novel and Flatiron鈥檚 marketing strategy. We didn鈥檛 just call on the publishing industry to transform, we also urged the public to read responsibly, to read us in our own voices. Latinx reading lists proliferated. Booksellers reported that .

Our collective rage gratified me. I traveled the United States speaking with audiences about Dignidad Literaria at public forums. Many Latinx folks I met shared the frustration and rage they鈥檝e carried since the day that a White supremacist committed the largest massacre of . For many of us, it鈥檚 come as a relief to be able to shout that we鈥檙e tired, we鈥檙e scared, and we鈥檝e had enough. Anger expresses our truth. Politeness masks it.

The students I work with at Long Beach Polytechnic High School are mostly Black and Brown, and some confided that the rise of Dignidad Literaria excited them. Young women of color claimed their voices and began writing first-person accounts about their experiences with intersectional oppression. 鈥淥ur hurt empowered me,鈥� one student said.

A student-led coalition with the goal of holding racist and abusive teachers accountable emerged on campus. Students self-published essays, fighting for dignity through prose. One of them accumulated their voices into an writing, 鈥淥ur words have fallen on deaf ears. We have spoken 鈥� we have been silenced鈥︹�� And when they staged a walkout in protest, that same student wrote, 鈥淲e want justice. We are students and we are kids; but, most of all, we are HUMAN BEINGS.鈥�

Reading their work, I thought to myself, 鈥淭hey鈥檙e teenage Foucaults!鈥�

Some of my students asked that if I met Oprah, could I please petition her for a car? I would鈥檝e done it, but the opportunity never came. Oprah produced an AppleTV program about the American Dirt scandal and didn鈥檛 invite me. Instead, she invited Latinx writers Julissa Arce, Esther Cepeda, and Reyna Grande to share the stage with her and Cummins. The women repeatedly invoked me as a literary provocateur, and I felt a sense of solidarity with Arce, Cepeda, and Grande, who pushed Oprah to admit to her failure. She did so, stating 鈥淲ell, I am guilty of not looking for Latinx writers.鈥� While Oprah shelters in place inside her California mansion, I hope she takes the opportunity to do so.