American Dirt

America is the land of freedom, opportunity, safety, acceptance. People from all over the world dream of coming here and I am aware of the turmoil their arrival causes. I have my own feelings about immigration and how our country should be handling it. Their arrival isn’t something that I think about often, if at all, and I’ve never considered what they experience in the course of running towards their dreams. Yet, in the last four months, I have been moved greatly by two very different stories about becoming an American. In the first, which I wrote about in my first reaction essay, the journey wasn’t planned and it was about a man who suddenly wasn’t anymore – wasn’t a citizen, wasn’t a border patrol officer, wasn’t trusted, wasn’t valuable.

Shortly after I turned that essay in, someone sent me a book suggestion. The book, “American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins, was the most recent pick by Oprah for her book club and the person who sent it to me, did so knowing that I would check it out simply because Oprah picked it. I downloaded it on Audible and it sat there for a couple of months while I was busy doing other things. I am an avid reader and love using the Audible app so that I am often reading/listening to multiple books at a time. Before I started the book, I didn’t read a review, didn’t read a synopsis or anyone’s write up on the book so I wasn’t sure what the story was or what to expect. I assumed that it had something to do with migration and the border – I honestly wasn’t sure I would even be interested in it – and so I started it while I was cleaning one afternoon. It took a total of 2 ½ minutes to be completely sucked in and I have continued to listen with full focus and reverence. I admit that I have not finished this book yet simply because there are moments in the story that I have to walk away from and process. It’s not a quick read and it’s not simple.

The story is about a mother and her young son who are on the run from a cartel boss in Acapulco de Juárez. Knowing that there is no place safe and no safe way, the mother takes nothing beyond the items they can fit in a backpack and fades into the migratory community beginning the trip to El Norte. The goal for all of the characters that you meet is to get to the US, get over the border and build a new life. As I initially listened, I thought that this was going to be a story about cartels and power and corruption. There is some of that…but “American Dirt” is a love letter and a horror story about the journey that men and women in Central and South America make every day, over and over again while facing danger and uncertainty.

This story has been so eye opening for me and has, quite frankly, made me feel ashamed. I’ve always known about the people trying to get to America. I’ve educated myself on the legal methods of becoming an American, have read about and heard about the illegal ways that people attempt to cross our borders but have never thought about or considered or even cared about what those journeys looked like. As I have read the book, more than once I have googled the situations that the author writes about and in each case, the stories that she tells are true. Young women being taken by a man in their neighborhood or city who decides that she should belong to him.  Their families fighting back and being killed or, worse, not fighting back and allowing it to happen because they have no other choice. In the story, there are two sisters who are running because the older sister had been taken. She kept quiet about it and complied to keep her family safe – then they instructed her to bring her sister in. Understanding that wasn’t something she could do, she took her sister and ran. There were consequences for that decision for both the family and the girls but you’ll have to read it to know. ☺

I think more importantly to me, are the stories about the migrants and the journey they make. To say that it is dangerous is a true understatement. It is disturbing, terrifying, disheartening and something I don’t think I would ever be able to do knowing what could happen. At one point in the story, the mom and son are at a shelter specifically for migrants and are preparing to leave when one of the employees calls everyone together to talk to them about the trip they are about to take. He tells them that of the 25 – 30 people standing in front of him, 27 will never make it the border. They will be killed getting on and off the trains, they will be kidnapped, raped, murdered or arrested by the migration officers and returned to where they came from. The lucky two or three who make it to the border will have nothing left. They will have been robbed or will have to pay off someone to keep from being kidnapped or raped. He then tells them that those 2 or 3 people who arrive in America with nothing will then live in a country that doesn’t want them there and will do nothing to help support them. In the story, none of the migrants change their minds, no one decides to go back or find another way. They all just agree and get ready to move on. 

The migrants attempt to make their trips easier by jumping the freight trains that travel north to the border. They must get on and off of these trains as they are moving and ride sitting on top of the moving cars. Every part of this is dangerous. There are people who don’t make it on or off and reading those passages were really tough for me. There were people who fell off the moving train, were knocked off unexpectedly and some who jumped to just be done with it…but the migrants kept going.

I haven’t finished the book. I will…I have to see how it ends but I am afraid of what is going to happen to these two characters that I have come to worry about. I tell myself that they aren’t real but I think they are. I think that there are human beings out there right now experiencing these same things and taking these same risks all with hoping that there is something better here. But is there? Really? After all of that they come into a country that thinks they are less than and treats them with such disregard. We don’t acknowledge what these people have gone through, what they have left behind, the impossible choices they have had to make or the number of times they risked their lives. This country sees them as a nuisance, as villains, as free labor or as an argument to make or a brick in a wall that needs to be built. But they continue to come and risk it all to live in this country and have what I have right now – something that I didn’t fight for, didn’t risk my life for, didn’t even earn but was gifted by being born into the right place. Reading this book has opened my eyes to this life being lived – survived - by this entire community of people and the question now is, how do I live with that?

Similar works that I have seen/read or been told are good include:

Across a Hundred Mountains by Reyna Grande

The 1983 film by Gregory Nava & Anna Thomas: El Norte.

Signs preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera

The 2009 film by Cherien Dabis: Amreeka.

Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselli

Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini's 2000 film: Well-Founded Fear.

Everyone Knows You Go Home by Natalia Sylvester