El Norte

An extraordinary new novel changes the conversation around immigration.

ILLUSTRATION BY Beatriz Gutierrez

IT’S NOT A spoiler to say that Jeanine Cummins’s American Dirt (Flatiron) opens with the slaughter of an Acapulco family witnessed by protagonist Lydia and her 8-year-old son, Luca. What ensues is a tale of suspense that unfolds as the pair make their way north, at every turn fearing that the drug lord they’re running from may be one step ahead of them—or even by their side, disguised as a migrant, which is what Lydia and Luca have now become. When Cummins set out, in 2013, to research the plight of immigrants from Latin America, she aimed to tell their individual stories, making it harder for anyone to view them as a homogeneous sea of brown faces. As she learned, immigrants come from many countries and cultures, including areas where Spanish…

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O, The Oprah (Digital) - 1 Issue, February 2020

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