‘American Dirt’ backlash is ‘about revolutionizing the publishing industry’

Myriam Gurba was teaching class at Long Beach Poly earlier this month when her cellphone suddenly rang. She told her AP psychology students that a reporter from the New York Times had called to speak with her.

“Tell them you don’t want a subscription!”

Gurba laughed before giving the reporter a mouthful about the brewing controversy over “American Dirt,” a much ballyhooed novel about undocumented Mexican immigrants by author Jeanine Cummins, who isn’t Mexican and whose most intimate knowledge of undocumented immigrants comes by way of Ireland.

Read more on my latest Long Beach Post feature:

https://lbpost.com/hi-lo/american-dirt-backlash-is-about-revolutionizing-the-publishing-industry