The group of Latinx authors had gathered at Alley Cat Books in San Francisco on Feb. 15 to participate in a public panel discussion about mismanagement of Latinx literature by the greater publishing industry, which has been ongoing for decades.
Colombian-San Franciscan author Juliana Delgado Lopera presided over the panel, which was organized by Dignidad Literaria—the grassroots network of independent Latinx writers that was founded by authors Roberto Lovato, Myriam Gurba and David Bowles—in response to controversy surrounding a recent book (titled “American Dirt”) that depicts the Mexican migrant experience, but was written by a white women.
Lopera introduced San Francisco Latina writer Ingrid Rojas Contreras, who reviewed said book in her piece, “There’s Nothing Thrilling about Trauma,” blasting it as an example of what she called “trauma porn”—the trend that depicts people struggling with poverty or violence (usually made by someone not experiencing the struggle) as something exciting or entertaining.
But rather than focusing the conversation on a non-Latinx’s work, Dignidad Literaria’s co-founder Lovato shifted the conversation to the much bigger, more pressing issue: the discrimination of Latinx literature by top executives of the publishing industry. So the panel instead discussed the importance and abundance of actual Latinx literature.
“We are here for ‘dignidad literaria,’” said panelist, author and SF State creative writing professor Carolina de Robertis. “It may seem that we are here because of controversy about a particular book. It is so much more than one book.”
Panelist and feminist-fiction icon Aya de Léon also weighed in on the enormous publicity campaign that surrounded the book before its release.
“It’s part of a strategy where [they] anoint a particular person as the chosen one to frame this story and is gonna tell a story that fits in line with the liberal version of whiteness—a whitewashed, misguided savior-complex,” de Léon said.
Panelists also spoke about the recent agreement made between Dignidad Literaria and Macmillan Publishers, the global publishing giant that has distribution in more than 40 countries.
Early last month in New York City, Dignidad Literaria members met with the top executives of Macmillan at their company’s headquarters to discuss the criticism raised by the publishing of “American Dirt.” The two parties agreed to address the problems of misrepresentation, and to move forward with corrective action to build a bridge from the desks of Latinx writers to the audiences of the world.
“We came to New York on a restorative, repairative mission. People of color know a thing or two about work,” said Dignidad Literaria co-founder Myriam Gurba, during a New York press conference on Feb. 3, 2020. “We came not only to extend an olive branch, we came to offer our assistance in restoring the dignity of all parties harmed, to wipe away the dirt. Our goal was justice and I believe we are on the right path to achieving that.”
According to Dignidad Literaria, Macmillan has committed to substantially increasing the amount of Latinx staff hired to editorial positions, and also to increasing representation of Latinx literature across the company by including features written by Latinx authors. The agreement also explained a 30-day and 90-day progress report to assess the implementation made by the company. That 30-day threshold is coming up this week.
After the historic victory at Macmillan in New York, Lovato returned to San Francisco detailing the experience during the public forum at Alley Cat Books. He opened the discussion by jokingly asking the audience, “So, brown people read?” The audience, surrounded by shelves packed with volumes of literature, chuckled in response.
But the joke pointed to a pressing reality, which came to the forefront of the conversation.
“That is what is believed in the industry. We’ve been systematically erased from U.S. literature, because of the perception that [a] large working class population doesn’t read,” Lovato said.
De Léon elaborated further.
“The whole ‘Brown People Don’t Read’ [is a] racist myth. The other thing that goes with that is, ‘And Whatever Brown People Are Reading Doesn’t Count.’”
When the panel was asked about what they believed the impact of the upcoming 2020 U.S. Census would be on Latinx literature, Lopera responded: “I hope that we all realize we have a lot of power. There’s 60 million of us. There are so many of us. I feel like there’s going to be a lot of white anxiety around the census definitely and the shifting of demographics. In the end I hope we see the results that we have a lot of power to shift the cultural production of this country.”