This is another case of author bullying. I’m running a little late on it, but after a recent comment on File 770 that someone with a Puerto Rican grandmother isn’t a real Latina, I’m going to check in. I would have questioned the comment on File 770, but I’ve been censored by Mike Glyer again. Presumably this means he supports the statement and doesn’t want it challenged.
The controversy is about the novel American Dirt, written by Jeanine Cummins. This is what Oprah Winfrey called a “heart-wrenching” novel about a Mexican family’s efforts to escape from a drug cartel and cross the US border. The novel was recommended by Oprah for her book club and then promptly met by trashing on social media as “brownface” and cultural appropriation by a “white” woman. Cummins revelation that her grandmother was Latina did nothing to stop the furor. This generates some interesting questions. First, what is the definition of Latina? Second, why is someone ¼ Puerto Rican identifying as white? And last, is the issue of #OwnVoices and/or cultural appropriation valid in this case?
First, the definition of Latina: Jim Crow laws would define anyone with a drop of Latin blood as Latina, but these laws are now (supposedly) defunct. However, Native Americans currently use a definition called blood quantum to assess eligibility for tribal membership. According to this principle, someone with ¼ ancestry is considered fairly close, and therefore would be eligible for membership in all but the pickiest tribes. So, a similar analysis suggests that having a Puerto Rican grandmother should definitely qualify Cummins as Latina.
Okay next, why hasn’t she been embracing her heritage and marketing herself as a Latina writer? Research suggests that certain ethnic groups embrace separatism and victim politics, while others opt to work within the system as it is. The US has a long history of immigrants that assimilate into the “white” race. This is, of course, easier for more-or-less light-skinned European types. Although Italian, Jewish and Irish immigrants faced initial racism, they fairly quickly assimilated into the white structure of the US. Trying to force other groups to assimilate (i.e. Native Americans) gave the process a bad name in the 19th century, but this remains a highly successful method of “becoming white.” US residents have a very flexible attitude toward culture and skin tone, and as it turns out, Latin immigrants expect to become white within two to three generations. According to Pew, about half of US Hispanic/LatinX residents mark the “white” box, stepping up to assume white privilege. Plus, the number changing their response from LatinX to white has been increasing lately, presumably as the benefits of minority status drop off and family affluence increases. So, does her identification as white erase Cummins’ Latina ancestry? How do you erase something like that, anyway?
And last, is this a case of “brownface” and/or cultural appropriation? One of the problems with knee-jerk, mob-action bullying campaigns is that they don’t investigate the facts before exploding on social media. Presumably Cummins feels a real connection to the Latin immigrant story, or she wouldn’t have felt compelled to write a heart-wrenching novel about the issue. Everyone might have considered shutting up and apologizing when she announced her Latina heritage, but instead they opted to double down and disparage her credentials as a real Latina. Cultural appropriation? Well okay, maybe, because her heritage isn’t Mexican, but you could easily make a case that being Latina is qualification enough; discuss the crime and drug trafficking problem in Puerto Rico, and count the number of Puerto Ricans that migrated to the mainland US after the last weather and corruption disaster. How closely are we going to split hairs on this issue?
The Phantom
Feb 16, 2020 @ 23:33:48
“I’m running a little late on it, but after a recent comment on [redacted] that someone with a Puerto Rican grandmother isn’t a real Latina, I’m going to check in.”
Read the comment. There is a reason we call it a wretched hive of scum and villainy. This type of thing right here is the reason.
“And last, is this a case of “brownface” and/or cultural appropriation?”
Haven’t read the book, but I expect not. Its a book with crime and the drug trade in Mexico as part of the backdrop, all the DemocRats and other SJWs are very eager to shut down any talk about that stuff. Therefore any book that gets attention in the media will be shirt-stormed if it mentions any of the bad things going on in Mexico these days. All you have to do is say “rape trees” and they’ll go nuts. (Don’t look that up, its nasty. The point is, SJWs don’t want you to talk about it and they’ll raise all kinds of hell if you do.)
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Lela E. Buis
Feb 17, 2020 @ 00:27:27
So you think the issue is more what she wrote about than the question of her heritage?
The comments that she’s white and not a real Latina are what really struck me. For one thing, it really points out how wrong assumptions about someone’s ethnicity can be. And then, when she’s laid out her heritage, it’s not enough. People still want to attack her as white so they can make their point about “brownface” and cultural appropriation.
BTW, this is why there is a classification in the US for white Hispanics. Even first generation LatinX children can pass as white once they learn to speak unaccented English. Lots of whites have brown skin, so it’s no big deal.
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The Phantom
Feb 17, 2020 @ 12:04:52
“So you think the issue is more what she wrote about than the question of her heritage?”
The political Left is very invested in their “open borders” concept, for a variety of reasons. They attack any mention of “hi jinks” committed by “migrants” in the USA or Mexico. They particularly don’t like coverage of all the dead bodies that civilian organizations keep turning up along the southern border. The morgue in Tucson AZ was expanded to include a commercial freezer facility, because their already fairly big capacity was filled. Filled with men, women and children killed by “migrant hi jinks.”
Consequently we get to see arguments presented such as “no TRUE Latina” and “SHUT UP!!!” and diverse variations. I expect to see particularly egregious behavior from those people, and I’m rarely disappointed. “One drop rule” applies in some situations, Pure Blood is required in others, often by the same commenters.
The wretched hive is stuffed full of political Leftists, so we see the spill-over.
And by the way. Since when is the author’s blood heritage a legitimate reason to criticize the contents of a work of fiction? We can’t talk about Mexicans or other visible minorities unless we are one? Really? When was that decided, and by who? I was not consulted. Its going to make it hard to write fantasy, all those elves and such.
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Lela E. Buis
Feb 17, 2020 @ 16:46:20
But then the attack on Macmillan for publishing Cummins and not REAL Latinos? The effort to paint her white is the interesting thing about this.
I’ve not read this either, but from what Oprah said, it’s very emotional and directed toward generating sympathy for immigrants.
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Lela E. Buis
Feb 17, 2020 @ 17:39:23
Nobody wants to talk about the issue of open borders in the US, but somehow a lot of people in Latin America have gotten the idea they will be welcomed if they show up in mass and apply. Isn’t this why the UK left the European Union?
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Cora Buhlert
Feb 18, 2020 @ 00:33:38
The UK left the EU, because its population were fed xenophobic and anti-EU propaganda for years. Furthermore, the UK took in almost no refugees and very few immigrants from Latin America. The overwhelming majority of immigrants to the UK were either people from the Commonwealth or EU immigrants who came to work in healthcare, the agrarian sector and elsewhere. This is not specific to the UK, e.g. in Germany a lot of nurses and agrarian workers are EU immigrants from Eastern Europe as well. EU and Commonwealth immigrants are no more criminal than the native UK population.
And while there are violent drug wars going on in Mexico and Central America and those violent drug wars are causing people to flee northwards, the biggest market for those drugs is the US. Also, the drug wars in Mexico and Central America are hardly a taboo topic for fiction. “The Border” by Don Winslow, a white US crime thriller author, is about drug wars in Mexico. Ditto for a recent Longmire novel by Craig Johnston, another white author. And TV crime dramas like NCIS feature Mexican cartels as antagonists all the time as well.
As for Jeanine Cummins, it seems to me that the main problem with “American Dirt” is envy, because the book got a 7 figure advance and was featured by Oprah Winfrey. Also, from what I’ve heard about the plot, “American Dirt” seems to be a romantic suspense novel set against the backdrop of the Mexican drug wars (not all that uncommon, Linda Howard, another white writer, wrote a similar romantic suspense novel a couple of years ago) that was marketed as “the great novel about the Mexican immigrant experience”. It also seems to be riddled with inaccuracies.
Note that no one was upset about genre novels like “The Border” by Don Winslow or the Longmire novel about the Mexican drug war or “Death Angel” by.Linda Howard, even though those books were written by unambiguously white writers and tackled a similar topic as “American Dirt” But then, none of those novels received a seven figure advance, were annointed by Oprah Winfrey and marketed as “the great novel about the immigrant experience”..
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The Phantom
Feb 18, 2020 @ 09:51:50
“…somehow a lot of people in Latin America have gotten the idea they will be welcomed…”
Yeah, funny how that happened. Example from my life, Marshall Minnesota is a place I lived for a few years. It is -the- most white-bread place I’ve ever lived in the USA.
I’m a medical professional, I got my PT license in the USA. I tried to get a green card for ten years before giving up and coming home to Canada. I’m like the model of the perfect immigrant: trained professional, legal, followed all the rules, got a lawyer, the works. Ten years, no green card.
Marshal Minnesota has a couple of industries. There’s Schwan’s Food Company, which is the home delivery outfit with the yellow trucks, and there’s a turkey processing plant, a corn ethanol plant, and a couple more similar operations.
Marshal Minnesota has a very large and growing Somali and Mexican population. Maybe 10%-12% of the population. All on green cards, all working at Schwan’s or the turkey plant etc. 25-30 years ago there were -zero- Somalis and -zero- Mexicans in Marshall.
So you can see how that looks a little funny. A Somali peasant in Africa who can’t read can get a US green card and knows to go to Marshall Minnesota for a job, but a Canadian licensed medical professional can’t get a green card no matter what. (I personally built computers for the Somali immigrants to learn to read on, it was a local charity, so anybody has a problem with ‘peasant who can’t read’ should take it up with the INS.)
And yes, I’m pretty salty about that.
Meanwhile, NGOs with ties to American Left political groups are busy organizing those “caravans” in South America, suckering thousands at a time into traveling a thousand miles to end up sneaking over the US border. Money to feed all those caravans comes from somewhere. Makes me wonder if some of it comes from Schwan’s.
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Lela E. Buis
Feb 18, 2020 @ 10:07:57
Cora, so you think the issue is just jealousy? I notice other Latinos are involved in this, so they’re just trying to bring down a Latina that’s too successful? And make a point that they should get advances like that, too? That doesn’t reflect very well.
Cummins has paid her dues. It looks like she worked in the publishing industry for 10 years, learning the ropes, before she started to write. This is her fourth book, so she has a track record. If Flatiron/Macmillan bid that much, they had to have expected to get their money back in sales.
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Lela E. Buis
Feb 18, 2020 @ 10:12:18
Phantom, your story reveals what workers are really in demand. US workers are unionized and expect better wages. This is standard in the farming industry, too, where the work is too hard and too low paid to attract native workers. But immigrants are happy to get the work.
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The Phantom
Feb 18, 2020 @ 10:14:02
Cora Buhlert said: “…the biggest market for those drugs is the US.”
Sure. Because nobody in Europe uses illegal drugs, right?
“The UK left the EU, because its population were fed xenophobic and anti-EU propaganda for years.”
I think it was more the “Asian grooming gangs of Rotherham,” honor killings and scooter thieves, Cora. Also the refrigerator mountains created by EU regulations and countless other irritations. People voted for Brexit for the same reason Americans voted for Trump: they’re sick of Big Government socialism, obscenely high taxes and unchecked street crime.
Canadians apparently aren’t sick enough of it yet, but the Liberal Party of Canada is working hard to see that they soon will be. Carbon taxes and letting eco-freaks shut down the national railway system this month. I guess we’ll see how that all plays out when Montreal runs out of gasoline and rural Ontario and Quebec run out of heating fuel. That’s about to happen.
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Lela E. Buis
Feb 18, 2020 @ 15:42:16
Cora and Phantom: On immigration, I think people should come out into the open with proposals for open borders so there can be a public discussion about it in the US. As far as I know, that’s not happened. Instead, we get a lot of unfortunate Latin Americans used as pawns and stuck in really poor conditions along the border. There would be economic issues that would have to be worked out for that to work effectively. Would Canada go for it?
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The Phantom
Feb 18, 2020 @ 16:14:16
“There would be ecomic issues that would have to be worked out for that to work effectively.”
Discussing the economic costs of mass immigration is racist, Lela. We’re not allowed to talk about that. How dare! ~:D
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Lela E. Buis
Feb 18, 2020 @ 17:36:39
It must be true that there is no bad publicity. I see the book is sitting at the top of the NY Times Bestseller list. This after they cancelled the book tour for “safety” reasons.
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Lela E. Buis
Feb 18, 2020 @ 17:42:14
Phantom, nobody likes economics ( a.k.a. the dismal science). It is often the cold water that drowns idealistic notions.
We’ve got North American trade agreements already. It would be easy to add in something about allowing for a flow of workers. Just throwing the doors open would cause chaos, though.
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The Phantom
Feb 18, 2020 @ 20:32:38
When the same number of Americans and Canadians are traveling to Mexico for work as Mexicans to America and Canada, then an open or semi-open border will be a good deal for the USA and Canada. Currently, not a good deal.
As to the economics of importing Africans to do minimum wage jobs in Minnesota, let’s consider one tiny thing: antibiotic resistance. Specifically, multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis.
Prior to the influx of African immigrants, Marshall Minnesota had the same boring infectious diseases as the rest of the USA. After the influx of Somalis, there was a requirement for the Internal Medicine and Infectious Disease staff to get updated on all kinds of exotic tropical diseases, particularly drug resistant tuberculosis. To treat a single case costs over $100k US.
Not to put too fine a point on it, these are people working at a food processing company. How many new cases of MDR-TB does it take before any advantage to the community is lost to medical expenses?
But I can’t talk about that because its racist.
On the same line, did you know leprosy is making a comeback in Los Angeles and San Francisco? Can you imagine what LA and SF are going to look like after the Kung-Flu inevitably sweeps through there?
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Lela E. Buis
Feb 18, 2020 @ 23:07:32
Both those are mycobacteria, right? So they can be latent. I’m thinking the bacteria are eventually going to win. Eventually they’ll be the dominant species on earth.
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Lela E. Buis
Feb 19, 2020 @ 20:41:43
Who is paying for the medical care? If the companies are importing non-unionized foreign workers who will take low pay and putting the costs of medical care on the state, then this is a case of what’s called “external costs” or “public costs.” It’s a hidden cost that taxpayers are willing to take on so the company can make more profit and sell lower priced goods. I would say, provide more jobs, too, but in this case they’re not providing very many for American workers.
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The Phantom
Feb 20, 2020 @ 16:01:36
“Both those are mycobacteria, right?”
The leprosy is a bacterium, and it isn’t very contagious. It doesn’t live long away from its host (or so I’ve heard, don’t quote me I am not an ID doc). Its hard to catch, but they’re catching it anyway. Filth and close quarters living, bad combination.
The Kung Flu, aka Wuhan Flu, Bat Flu et al is a virus. Fabulously contagious from what we’re seeing on the news, about the same as the common cold. Apparently they have a case in Iran today, of all places. Some here in Canada too, and there is a great silence in the Canadian media about that.
Put that in San Francisco, where they can’t even keep human poo off the sidewalks downtown in the fancy shopping districts. Kapow. Instant zombie apocalypse.
I can tell you some stories about SARS, I was in Canada for that fun time. Hospitals and the public health establishment learned a lot from it (or re-learned, it boils down to proper sanitation protocols and hand washing just like Florence freakin’ Nightingale), and then immediately FORGOT it all right afterward, as if it had never happened.
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Lela E. Buis
Feb 20, 2020 @ 16:49:25
As I understand it, developing TB or leprosy is an immune failure, as the infections are self-limiting in most people. BUT, that’s where you get the latent version, where people become carriers even though they don’t have symptoms.
My mom actually had TB as a kid, but didn’t know it until she got a job that required TB screening. The tubercle scars are visible on her lungs in an X-ray.
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The Phantom
Feb 20, 2020 @ 16:07:06
Lela asks: “Who is paying for the medical care?”
You are. As in, you personally. Your federal taxes go in part to cover the medical costs of undocumented aliens and also foreign workers in Minnesota. All so that the turkey plant can get lower employee costs. The company pays for nothing.
Sounds great, right? Open borders, yay. ~:|
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Lela E. Buis
Feb 20, 2020 @ 16:52:20
That’s one of those hidden economic issues that needs to be evaluated regarding open borders, of course. If this were actually addressed by legislation or a treaty that allowed entry for workers, there might be a requirement for health screening and/or treatment before immigration.
Open borders with no plans = chaos.
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The Phantom
Feb 20, 2020 @ 17:10:43
“If this were actually addressed by legislation or a treaty that allowed entry for workers, there might be a requirement for health screening and/or treatment before immigration.”
They have all that already. You would not believe the medical screening I went through to NOT get a green card. Chest x-rays, vaccinations, proofs of vaccinations, fingerprints (like three times) oh yeah.
But the Somali goat herder didn’t get screened. He got a free airplane ride and a complimentary dinner at TGI Friday’s. Then when he was too sick to stand up and stir the ice cream or whatever, he went to the the hospital and they diagnosed his MDR-TB. And the state paid the bill after his company insurance plan came up short, yep you betcha. I didn’t make that up, there were several cases like that at the hospital during the few years I was in that town.
All the law, protections and regulations you could shake a stick at are in place. The INS and the Border Patrol just ignore them. Mexican man with bad cough gets scooped out of the Arizona desert, stuck in a facility with 1000 other Mexican men, then gets put on a bus/train/airplane to wherever the hell he wants to go in the USA. Marshall Minnesota? Sure, no problem.
That bad cough. Is it the cold? Is it TB? Is it the fricking bubonic plague? They don’t know, they didn’t check.
That’s what they were doing in the Obama administration. I’m not sure what’s going on now, it probably isn’t much different.
But a Canadian? Oh hell yes, they get screened and checked out from hell to breakfast.
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