American Dirt: Dignity & Equity

So many reactionary critiques of #DignidadLiteraria — activism centering the literary dignity of Latinx people spurred by the publishing of American Dirt — are infused with either privileged blindness or deliberate disingenuousness.

I want to interrogate the attempted dismissal of our concerns.

First, authors definitely have the right to write outside of their identity. An absolute legal right. No one disputes that. But there’s homework to be done. Questions to be asked.

For secondary characters, especially from groups that exist in your own community or region, the work isn’t as strenuous. But for main characters who have a very different identity than yours— especially when you don’t live alongside them in our community or interact with them — the work is MUCH HARDER.

When writing about characters unlike you, living in an entirely different country and cultural paradigm, the labor required is Herculean.

Hence Writing the Other, the book and workshop crafted by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward to help authors write characters who are outside their own cultural identity.

Daniel José Older asks, “Have you considered The Why, and have you considered The No? Why do you feel it falls to you to write someone else’s story? Why do you have the right to take on another’s voice? And should you do this? The answer isn’t always no…”

But sometimes it is.