Commodifying Mexico: On American Dirt and the Cultural Politics of a Manufactured Bestseller

Following the publication and controversy surrounding American Dirt (2020) by Jeanine Cummins, this essay discusses the process by which American Dirt’s bestseller status was manufactured in correlation with Flatiron’s aim to capitalize on a growing Latinx market and on the political visibility of the questions of immigration. It argues that the misrepresentation and commodification of Mexico in the book’s form and construction is a central feature of its marketability and success and studies the ways in which the book’s errors align themselves with representations in Hollywood cinema and television that forward a negative view of Mexico aligned with anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican politics. Finally, the essay discusses the coexistence of these two factors with a growing infrastructure of Hispanophone and translated Latin American literature that competes with, and seeks to challenge, the existence of books like American Dirt.