Either me ok and join the stream today a new novel about a mexican families migration to the u. S. Well look at why the book is striking a nerve with american latinos online. Ringback journalists covering organized crime and Drug Trafficking and you are in a string. The book is called american and it tells the story of a middle class mexican woman and her 8 year old son who was forced to flee for their lives and seek refuge across the u. S. Border. Although mused. Heard immigration. And this story really opened my heart and changed the way i will see migrants. Oprah loves the book it has the coveted spot in the Oprah Winfrey book club and donna praised by the authors john grisham and stephen king as well as Mexican American authors Sandra Cisneros and Erika Sanchez the novel which is it was written by an author who is neither mexican nor a migrant is now the center of a debate over who gets to tell stories of historically marginalized people critics online say the book is rife with stereotypes and cultural misrepresentations the controversy also highlights the issues that result from a lack of diversity in a white dominated u. S. Publishing industry joining us to talk about this in long beach california. She is a writer and artists whose widely shared book review of america and helped spark a more critical look at the novel isnt Louis MissouriSanchez Prado he is a professor of spanish latin american studies and film and media studies at the Washington University in st louis and in edinburgh texas david cole was a Mexican American author who teaches at the university of texas rio grande a valley good to have you everybody youve all read the vote which is a great start maria. Can review for us while i show people what she said about the book back in december what would you say whats the plot that stopped the plot festival. Ok so the plot is basically that. Middle class bookseller living and a couple 1 1 who flirted with and not call has to go 1 on the run in order to save her own life and her sons life because shes now being pursued by this not go just to go on the run and make it to the United States land of freedom but thats essentially the plot and then when you. Want to review im just the shape people you are physical pain to the top of your twitter page right now you would know complementary at school because why. Well because the book is really bad its a tacky book a its a poorly written but. Misrepresents make you go so many people have written about this subject that its so well and so elegantly and its grown task that this book is being championed and placed on a pedestal as if its representative of a universal migrant experience as if it is representative of mexican sensibility and its absolutely not and thats thats the beef that i have. Well and i think that but the problem is that many of fulls its been a long time teaching people in the United States about their country and they say that people have a Little Mexican but a significant electoral consequences people vote on the basis of his representations people whose soup learned to read it in the ration on the basis those ripples in asian people support or reject the word on the rolls and that is that was representation and if you look at that we makes it is a percent that it is not substantially different than a lot of media that out of radiant they mix it and actually support a negative is to look at. The racial politics and the feeling that yeah that it yeah yeah you just heard in that clip from. From that she talks about how of all the story shes heard about people migrating from the violence in Central America and the cartel and drug cartel issues in mexico coming to the u. S. This book is the one story that made her open her heart the problem is this book is a work of fiction and its a work of fiction that set in what most of us agree is an alternate universe mexico because it has nothing to do with the mexico that we know and love it is full of these kind of hollywood thriller b. Movie tropes im sure a lot of people in your audience of had this experience where theyve seen their culture depicted in hollywood films in ways that are frankly insulting and that dont you know encompass all of the nuances of their lives and their religions and their hopes and fears and dreams and thats whats happened here its a book written for the white gays ostensibly because Jeanine Cummins unflattering books and their principal author Oprah Winfrey who has multiple books from that publisher who wanted to raise consciousness and in the you know the White Community in. The United States about the problem mexico and give a voice to the faceless brown bastards jeanine says the irony is that we have been writing books mexicans and most good americans who make 18 percent of the population in the us by the way ive been writing books and trying to get them published for years and years and years our voices only make up less than 3 percent of the books published every year and we get paid very little for it and for someone to take our story and write it to the white gays and earn more than a 1000000. 00 for it with the imprimatur of Oprah Winfrey no less is calling that spoiled. White white case merriam go ahead what what is white when you were reading the book what we seeing i was when i read the book and i took it out of the white gaze i took note of the fact that the book is written in such a way that if a white reader is engaging with it they are able to place themselves in this position of the period or a date where theyre looking down upon. An inferior group of people mexicans are an inferior group of people Central Americans are an inferior group of people indigenous folk of the americas are an inferior group of people and white people can congratulate themselves for and both sizing and im using air quotes empathizing with these folks because theyre capable of temporarily and how putting their skin and then taking it off so it is an adventure and pity porn so to speak. And i say were being watched live when you shave right now kai put this to me this is elizabeth whos on you tube watching us she said shes had a lot of discussions like this if someone hasnt lived through experience should they be the ones writing wrote an article today especially when people of color on the represented. So what i would say is that what makes you an authority to something is not where youre from but whether you know about it you never lose money mexicans that have been challenged in mexico in particular regarding the way they come or they can modify and still the question of the word the sacrifical is about the surveillance that was friend of mine who has pointed this out about many mexican books that i know some books by americans one recent one is on the plane of 6 people throw it to others to make sicko writes extensively about it but he never actually put tends to know something he doesnt. What is infuriating about this book is that it is i mean get it really norman book that is. Massive up but at d least it did as knowledgeable and up but it is a bullet it is so large that it may actually end up being the only book of old mexico that many readers read it will think in the basis of negative representational the country of the mediation issue overlooked in mexico i mean its not any of those things yes thought. No i was agreeing with not 100 percent this is a problem and i wrote about a New York Times that the Publishing Industry has that they. Put all their emphasis on the one big title pretty euro per season Janine Cummins a wrote the book editor right after. Trying to become president and we were suffering really agonizing debates at a National Level about children being separated from their families and being put in cages and so forth and so you know its really kind of disgusting that flat iron would want to tap into that site guys and make so much money off it again you know working behind the scenes to make sure that oprah selected for book club you know investing so much money in it throwing a 1000000. 00 in income as for the work that she done. And it is you know its just indicative of how broken the system is and we are really pushing with our hash tag dignity that he did idea which is literary dignity to get people into to tell their stories and show that their voices exist. Absolutely and can i add something to this go ahead there has been there has been a sort of let them eat cake flavor to the. Campaign to push this book which is infuriating and disgusting so. It became Public Knowledge that flat iron launched a party and order to introduce this book out im a booksellers of events and im centerpieces that looked like many border walls wrapped in barbed wire adorned tables while people dined on lobster right and so there was this torture chic this torture aesthetic that was being used to promote the book theres a photograph thats been become notorious where manic a manic your matches the book cover. Made viral news and magic your future is the barbed wire right which is a symbol of atrocity and now atrocity has become chic atrocity has become fashion atrocity has become commodified and to me thats the apex of summer im going to wear the border on my fingernails yeah i mean everything every shade this with you you you all of i guess across this some of the hashtags the conversations people having american im north american writing my latino novel that what i highly recommend a very amusing and dick need. Which is to hear a browser all saying tick. From the Latino Latina latina x. Experience let me just put a portal in this conversation about that particular book because its a much bigger conversation to have. But having said that in the last 24 hours this is what flat i indeed they apologized they picked up an that youve been talking about sharing without audience and i apologize let me show you what i actually said we should never have claimed that it was a novel that defined the my current experience is a much longer. Apology in that at the party they are listening. But at the same time if you go a little bit further down that apology they canceled the book tour and the in the reason they did it was because of vitriolic rancor to quote unquote and also because there are they are afraid of threats of physical violence and these sorts of things in the United States for your audience that doesnt know it these troops that try to paint Mexican Americans mexicans let the people in general as medium was saying inferior but also barbaric and violent and so forth have been used again and again to inflict violence on our community weve been deported in mass twice in the in the past 100 years yet millions of Mexican Americans deported many of them citizens of the u. S. During the thirtys and in the fiftys schools were separated for the longest time and we we remember this violence that we have it off like a cultural memory i would like so go ahead me desert i would like to add that i grew up an account name santa maria california i grew up there in the eightys we had a mayor who was known as mr santa maria mr santa maria ran for there on an anti Mexican Campaign over and over and over he would come on television and you have mr santa maria routine but i i also and societies that are calm with populated by mexican good met the birth of bad executed bad mexican a mexican who did we have to and he argued that all the mexican. That you concentration camps along the border the United States could figure out what to do with the bad neck the cant i have been dealing with this bad met the control my whole entire life and now im watching this trial reach its logical culmination miriam and david and. We can spend the host. Talking about bad mexican troops we were what it was i mean like i think they would. Say that if you want to do that read the book let me show you something here on twitter because with this is a much bigger conversation either that or says ive read books by authors who tell the story of others in a respectful acknowledging i mean for this one doesnt believe in this very thoughtful and spot on thread here and then im just showing you some of the conversations are going like that very healthy conversations scupper not good books this caught our eye one person just for every book in this display except american debt and you can see all of these books and being invited to look at them a wreath this display caught our eye it we spoke to the bookshop. And this is what he told us have a listen i had a woman who was special ordered to. Talk to me about it and the entire controversy really really brought up a conversation about who tells who stories and whether this was appropriate in the end she ended up walking out with another book. The children of the land its been a great way to store conversations about the issues its also been a great way to prove otherwise to next authors to the fore so we have a we have an issue with the Publishing Industry and how diverse yet its a system is it could be place yes the single most responsible. This is flip they dont books yet because youre going to people are going to write a bad book but if you get the bug book bidding war with it even if the. Theyve been a good long because they have managed to get that little mint and disperses. They used into their work and then give it to oprah and then that is shocked that they have a controversy that is. One of the things. Thats thats perfectly said i mean think about the fact that they brought in an argentinean american editor and then they wonder why were complaining about how bad the spanish is im sure that in the letters of people who are watching this you have multiple different dialects of the languages that you speak yet and imagine you know somebody purporting to to to write a particular dialect but using words from another one thats essentially what youre saying here so its a book and i mean thats a detail like this and is this indicative though because it could end up just that we need to just unpacking this one book and the industry is so much bigger for it is that we show this the racial makeup of publishing in the United States and you can see let me just show you here the red area books published by white office caucasian office asian would be the orange a mix race would be the light to orange i can go for this this is the past but it also is right here there is a problem with this pie chart so. Weve. Im more aware of this problem now because of the controversy around america and. American as you are an osa how would you display whats happening in the Publishing Industry right now with authors of color. Well im. The point where what flat irons said it have starting a conversation around that are right theres this theres this rhetoric now but at least weve begun the support conversation i see that argument this way imagine a man walks up to me and smacks me across the face and tells me you want to be thankful i smacked you across the face because now we can have an important conversation about Domestic Violence we shouldnt have had to have been smacked across the face to have had this conversation this book thats problematic before mexicans and other folks showed up to say it was problematic right right is it what are you know that brought attention to this thats right the persian introduce this now yet its been there some really because when you talk about mexican literature you look you know look at different groups theres a mexican literature written in english but people who live in the you and the mexican literature and the insulation that doesnt get translated because the donation structure is given burglaries or because mexican authors get that they do not represent the good version of mexican that feeds the readership so there are many feel there is that how do you address this yes you know i was a part of this the rebels say that the next for the white river success your experts in this field how do you address this how are you addressing this. But by trying to force publishers to come to the table and have a conversation this is one of the reasons that. The hash tag is so important its a way of having it this kind of organic organizing of people all across the nation level at the next people in their allies making their voices heard sharing their stories demanding and publishing and she take a look at us and see that we do have ways this but theyve been ignoring our voices there are all kinds of roadblocks in place all these barriers and gate keepers that keep our voices out which is why despite as i said being 18 percent of the u. S. Population we make up less than 3 percent of the books published every year so there needs to be a proactive approach to this many of the 5 publishers have taken steps but no one is one of the ones lagging behind mcmillan flat iron so there really needs to be this attempt to bring in authentic own voices and make sure that they tell the stories that need to be told rather than it was in a way so really. The media feels you do because the disproportionate obit has that the media has even so many going there would never actually be even written either by a mexican or Mexican American author or even by a knowledgeable author about mexico as you have but it illicitly bullish english children archive with green acclaim and then you have all the thorough polish you want to put in the snakes book and you have will to listen to the rascals not a mystery is someone who still is very well and all of the soul and youll get to see more than book and in it is bluster they really were right success when figured out be suitable books that the medium does not longer write so forgive me for doing this but we did invite to incoming stepping on the science that we could have a conversation with have declined our request but i do want to just a little bit of what he was thinking as she wrote the book what she thinks of the control post right from the book have a listen to him cummings. I was afraid i was really afraid i was afraid of this very moment of being called stridently called to account for myself who do you think you are to write this book i want people to understand whats in my heart and that i am open to learning you know and that i want i wrote this book ultimately because i felt all my favorite fiction is the kind of fiction that can put you into mentally inside the skin of another person and build a bridge of empathy into the heart of the reader and i fell thats why well thats why i wrote this book i hoped to provoke empathy. I wish i could see a mans face right then. She was not impressed. For me they think the elephant in the room is this is fiction are you not asking for fiction novel s. A writer has to have the same level of integrity as a journalist are we not asking too much of office i dont know im not asking for an author to go to write with most authenticity im asking for authors not to write badly and im asking for authors to write responsibly listen to what she said that fiction is something that allows you to where somebody else says again do you really want to be scanned and worn by Janine Cummins and like i wrote about that phenomenon in the review know that i penned where i once time walked in on a white woman who was Walking Around in my bedroom wearing my clothes because she wanted to see what it felt like to be a mexican its incredibly humiliating to fictionalise our human is the fictional human to this in general because the book in its in did not give the author a lease its a reading of the book as a favor and realistic representational writing reading thats right exactly big of a list discreetly so that they you know common trait to hide themselves from the writings fiction writing yes of it is to me thing because they are distilling this book thats almost as a book of sociology and they say you have the book and i know that what i read one of the quotes from the back of the book or one of the bits of the blurb for to read it to us only we can say that on that front all right yeah im going just what i mean actually is the. Distance what she says. I was going to believe it in my research i tell extensively on both sides of the border there and you wonder what the what the should. You have. Was any of that he really was a good professor read over the i think not cause any of that convincing to you know about research. She. Would not accept that it was in mexico for my undergraduate students and she was like. You say so we dont work and then one means you believe for us is the big like that only when you think about homework so shes clearly a big big is going to be number one in your example if you know the censorship yeah yeah so im going to join us we can actually get tested you know it showcased its shocking how much we have to say and how little time we have to say and you know what how much time i have left just to stick to hands on the show i have enough time to say miriam thank you i. Q. Tell you very frankly i know you can go on for more for much much longer and i really do appreciate your input American Dirt sold almost 49000 books in the very 1st week that it was out let me just show you if you an apology from the Book Publishers and flight time books at knowledge the discussion that the novel american has ignited about publishing and representation of minority communities thats all the time we have thanks for watching i will see you on line next time take. A. Business leaders is for to find a brass path. From. Business leaders as well to find a brass path. Ive struggled its full of pleasure. That i. Can pick out over the study on one side of the internet still but im there also as a missile to all the elephants and says to an intimate look at life in cuba to be clear in the media i meet a longtime employee told me it was a little what the answer would be in my cuba. On aljazeera. As the world battles the coronavirus pandemic well bring you the latest developments from around the world. With updates about travel restrictions and how to protect yourself. Coronavirus pandemic special coverage on aljazeera. Owner and Taylor Nandan the top stories on our 0 we begin with breaking news the sounded at kurdish infighting hoofy rebels in yemen has announced a cease fire beginning on thursday a Saudi State News Agency s. B. A. Says the ceasefire is intended to help prevent a corona Virus Outbreak in yemen also allowing for a deescalation in fighting the cease fire is due to be in at 12 noon local time when you more on this as it develops deaths from a coronavirus continue to mount across the globe