The Influence of “American Dirt”

If American Dirt Doesn’t Move Us to Rectify the Tragic War on Migrants, Then We Are Lost.

My wife and I just finished Jeanine Cummins’ brilliant, but devastating novel, American Dirt, and we can finally allow the tension to slowly dissipate from our immediate consciousness.

Then came the guilt. Followed by the anger.

If you have not read the novel, I will not put a spoiler in my diatribe. I will simply say this: the antagonists of this novel are the bloodthirsty, amoral drug cartels and the heartless, race-baiting Trump Administration (although Trump’s name is not mentioned very often, rather he is alluded to).

Several years ago, I read a novel entitled Cobra written by Frederick Forsyth, who wrote the classic Day of the Jackal. His book was rather farfetched. At its crux it had a noble premise. In the his book, the American President has a ‘come to Jesus moment’ and makes the decision that the drug cartels are the cause of so much mayhem in the world that nothing short of an all out war initiated by the US military is necessary: a war that isn’t authorized by Congress.

It is a military assault by land, air and sea; however, it is accomplished in a Mission Impossible mode, with the drug kingpins “self-destructing in 60 seconds.” If only. (Actually, the plan made a lot of sense; much more than our “shock and awe” catastrophe in Iraq.)

In the face of the unimpeded drug cartel’s destruction of the rule of law in Mexico and Central America, American Dirt chronicles the assault on these migrants that Trump has labeled “murders and rapists.” When Trump claimed that “Mexico is not sending their best,” the tragic characters of Ms. Cummins’ novel epitomize courage. Their journey from the reach of the killers hired by drug lords is unfathomable to most Americans who worry about the slightest disturbance in their daily routine. My anger percolates to any politician aligned with Trump’s cruel caging and separating children from their family.

These migrants are not dangerous — it is those chasing them who represent the danger to all Americans.

The terror that the cartels emit is non-stop and limitless. The escape to el norte is the only chance that anyone has once they are targeted, and the aim of the cartels is indiscriminate and unhinged. Ms. Cummins focuses on not just Mexico, but all of Central America. It also makes the point that the United States isn’t the only America in the world.

The novel educates the reader about the reality of escape. The brutality. The danger cannot be overstated. No one can be trusted because the cartels corrupt even the most-well intentioned. The taste of fear is the only sustenance that keeps the migrants scraping forward to el norte.

Ironically, it is irrational fear that Trump and his enablers stoke with the chants of “build a wall.” (Mexico has never paid for this wall, the most senseless, ineffective waste of money sold by Fox “News” and the likes of Rush Limbaugh to a simple minded President, himself walled away golfing, to deal with truly complex problems.)

These migrants are not dangerous — it is those chasing them that represent the danger to all Americans, but migrants are vilified by people who hear a different language or a darker skin tone and jump to conclude that this “infestation” — Trump’s words — needs to be eradicated.