American Dirt

“It might be better for him to go and look, to see the brilliant splatters of color on Yénifer’s white dress, to see Adrián’s eyes, open to the sky, to see Abuela’s gray hair, matted with stuff that should never exist outside the neat encasement of a skull. It might be good, actually, for Luca to see the warm wreckage of his recent father, the spatula bent crooked beneath his fallen weight, his blood still leaching across the concrete patio. Because none of it, however horrific, is worse than the images Luca will conjure instead with the radiance of his own imagination.”

With its descriptive details and strong imagery, this passage makes a simple point: imagination is worse than reality. The horrifying sight of 16 dead bodies doesn’t come close to what Luca imagines awaits in the backyard. Cummins draws on this idea at other points in the novel, notably, during Soledad and Rebeca’s rape. She describes the events leading up to and following the assault, but not the rape itself, a tactic that leaves the worst to the reader’s imagination.

“If I had met you in a different life, I would ask you to marry me.”

Javier’s feelings for Lydia are central to the novel. His primary motivation for having her family murdered is revenge for Marta’s suicide. His romantic feelings toward Lydia, however, are also part of the equation. Javier interprets Sebastián’s inclusion of his poem in the exposé as a personal betrayal by Lydia. The woman he is in love with is thus complicit in his daughter’s death. For her part, Lydia is wracked with guilt by Javier’s declaration, knowing that if circumstances been different, she would have accepted his proposal.

“He’s not your typical narco. In a different life, he could’ve been Bill Gates or something. An entrepreneur.” 

This passage leads to an epiphany: Lydia realizing that the drug kingpin Sebastián has been researching and Javier are the same person. Sebastián’s turn of phrase reminds Lydia of a conversation she had with Javier, when he declared he would have proposed to her “in a different life” (28). Later that night, Lydia searches Sebastián’s backpack. His research confirms her suspicion that Javier is the jefe of Los Jardineros.

“There is blood on your hands as well. I’m sorry for your pain and mine. Now we are bound forever in this grief. I never imagined this chapter for us. But do not worry, Queen of my Soul–your suffering will be brief.” 

Lydia receives a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera and a card from Javier at a hotel in Acapulco. The card alludes to her culpability in the massacre. Though she doesn’t know it yet, Sebastián’s article led to Marta’s suicide. As Sebastián’s wife, Lydia is complicit in Marta’s death. The card also contains a thinly veiled warning: her suffering will be brief because she will soon be dead.

“We made it.” 

Luca naively believes that getting on the bus out of Acapulco means he and his mother are safe. He is unaware of long journey that awaits and the dangers that lie ahead. Getting on the bus provides no relief for Lydia. She knows this leg is just beginning, but she chooses not to burden Luca with more than he can handle.

“Meredith eventually arrives home without those boys (who stayed behind for even more church), and with her comes Luca’s first experience of proprietary grief.” 

Although Luca is a loveable child, his reaction to Meredith’s grief when she learns of his family’s death is decidedly ungenerous. He understands that Meredith and his father were friends, but her tears irritate him, as do her attempts to console him. Luca is a young, but complex character. He is endearingly bright, but not without flaws. His positive and negative attributes make him relatable and bring the character to life.

“What love had been there was already slipping away. She could still sense it like a ghost in the room, vague and inanimate, but she could no longer feel it. Her affection had gone, leached out, like blood from a cadaver. When he squeezed her fingers, she caught the scent of formaldehyde. When he hooked his sad gaze into hers, she saw the glass of his lenses, spattered with blood.” 

This passage draws an analogy between the death of a friendship and actual death. Lydia’s love for Javier fades as he confirms he is the jefe of Los Jardineros and refuses to leave the cartel. The language not only conjures up death (cadaver, formaldehyde, blood), it also alludes to the massacre of Lydia’s family. 

“[F]ear and corruption work in tandem to censor the people who might otherwise discover the clues that would point to justice. There will be no evidence, no due process, no vindication.” 

This passage addresses two related problems that allow the cartels to operate with impunity in Mexico: fear and corruption. Fear not only dissuades police officers from doing their jobs, it also prevents witnesses from coming forward, as evidenced by neighbors furtively drawing their blinds in the wake of the massacre in Chapter 2. The lead detective at Lydia’s mother’s house spells out the problem of police corruption, noting that seven of the officials investigating the massacre are on the cartel’s payroll. 90 percent of crimes in Mexico go unsolved, in large part because of fear and corruption.     

“That these people would leave their homes, their cultures, their families, even their languages, and venture into tremendous peril, risking their very lives, all for the chance to get to the dream of some faraway country that doesn’t even want them.” 

Before violence forced her to flee Acapulco, Lydia was like many middle-class Mexicans—sympathetic to the plight of migrants, but out of touch with their experiences. She pitied migrants, donated money, and idly wondered what circumstances led them to leave their home. She never fully appreciated the desperation fueling the northern migration. At a public library in Mexico City, Lydia realizes that she and Luca are not disguised as migrants, they are migrants.

“Acapulco is emptying of its people. How many of her neighbors have fled in the last year? How many have disappeared? After all those years of watching it happen elsewhere, of indulging their remote pity, of shaking their heads as the stream of migrants flowed past them at a distance, from south to north. Acapulco has joined the procession, she realizes. No one can stay in a brutal, bloodstained place.” 

For many years, Acapulco remained immune to cartel violence, protected by the sea, mountains, and most importantly, tourist dollars. The desire to safeguard the tourism industry kept the cartels in line. It was the encroachment of Los Jardineros into Acapulco, and Javier’s desire for ascendancy, that led to the eruption of war. The once sheltered residents of Acapulco thus became as vulnerable as everyone else living in cartel territory, prompting an exodus from the city.

“It really did happen; all those years of worry did not prevent it. And not only Sebastián, but Mamá, too, and Yemi and her beautiful children, and none of them had chosen to marry Sebastián, or to take on the risks of his profession as their own. Only she had done that, and now her family had paid for her choice.” 

Sebastián views exposing the cartels as his ethical and professional responsibility. He started writing about the cartels the moment violence erupted in Acapulco, continuing to do so long after the violence escalated. The risks, however, are not entirely his own. Lydia resents the danger Sebastián puts himself in, as well as the impact his decisions have on her and Luca. She accepted the risks, but never did she imagine the rest of her family would pay for her choices. She struggles with guilt through much of the novel.

“Her feet smart in a way they haven’t since she was a young girl leaping from the swings at a full arc, when she’d land with a thud, and feel that echo of tenderness reverberate up her legs. They’re sore, but it’s not a bad pain. It’s only a reminder that she’s alive.” 

Just six days into the journey, Lydia already feels the impact of fleeing on her body. The pain in her feet contrasts with the numbness she feels in the immediate aftermath of the massacre. Lydia interprets pain as evidence that she is still alive, while the lack of feeling reminds her of the daze she found herself in after her father’s death and her late-stage miscarriage. 

“Anyway, Papi was a cook in this big hotel in San Pedro Sula, and it was almost a three-hour journey by bus from where we lived, so he only came home maybe once every couple of months to visit us. But that was still okay because this place, our little cloud forest, even though we missed our papi, it was the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen. We didn’t really know that then, because it was the only place we’d ever seen, except in pictures in books and magazines, but now that I’ve seen other places, I know. I know how beautiful it was.” 

Rebeca reminisces about her tiny village in the mountains of Honduras, a place locals call a cloud forest. Before the cartels came to the area, she and Soledad had never been away from home. Rebeca did not fully appreciate the beauty of her village. Now that she has seen other places, she understands how lucky she was to grow up in the cloud forest. Her idealized recollections of her home are filled with nostalgia. The quote captures the yearning migrants feel when they are forced to trade their homes for countries with which they have few or no ties. 

“Your baby will be a US citizen.” 

Lydia whispers these words to Soledad after learning that the teenager is pregnant with Iván’s child. She says the words matter-of-factly, but the implications are consequential. Unlike other migrants, who will be undocumented for the rest of their lives, Lydia believes that Soledad’s child will be American. She seems unaware of current debates surrounding birthright citizenship and its potential elimination by means of executive order. The fact that Soledad miscarries metaphorically ends hope for a happy ending. 

“Not everybody has a mami like you, all right? Some mothers don’t give a shit.” 

Lorenzo left home when he was 13 or 14 years old after coming into conflict with his stepfather. His mother did not intervene. The backstory serves to humanize the character, not just for the reader, but also for Lydia, who remains nervous around Lorenzo despite assurances that he means her no harm. The juxtaposition of Lorenzo’s mother, who allows her child to live on the streets and fall in with the cartel, and Lydia, who consistently risks her life to save Luca, brings the theme of parental love into sharper focus.

“This is not normal.” 

Soledad repeats these words to Lydia, who reminds her not to get too comfortable with the unusual circumstances in which they find themselves. The sisters, Lydia, and Luca have gotten adept at boarding La Bestia, something that used to terrify them. Soledad calls it adapting, while Lydia insists they should not normalize the abnormal. 

“Lydia is constantly reminded that her education has no purchase here, that she has no access to the kind of information that has real currency on this journey. Among migrants, everyone knows more than she does. How do you find a coyote, make sure he's reputable, pay for your crossing, all without getting ripped off?” 

Lydia is a college educated, middle class bookstore owner and a voracious reader, yet she is often at a loss on her journey north. Younger migrants with no formal education have far more practical knowledge than she does. Soledad and Rebeca, for example, not only know how to board La Bestia safely, they also arranged to cross the US-Mexico border with a reputable coyote referred to them by their cousin. 10-year-old Beto reinforces Lydia’s feelings of inadequacy later in the novel with his knowledge of US immigration policy. 

“Most of these people are bad guys anyway, young man. It’s important for you to understand that. They’re not innocents. They’re gang members, they’re running drugs. They’re thieves or rapists or murderers, like the norteño president says. Bad hambres.” 

The commander tries to justify rounding up and extorting migrants to Luca. He uses the inflammatory language of anti-immigration politicians to defend his actions, mispronouncing the word ‘hombres’ in the same way Donald Trump did during the final presidential debate in 2016. According to the commander, migrants flee their homes because of problems they brought on themselves. Good, law-abiding people do not run away.

“She sticks her hand through the fence and wiggles her fingers on the other side. Her fingers are in el norte. She spits through the fence. Only to leave a piece of herself there on American dirt.” 

Soledad sticking her fingers through the border fence and spitting are acts of defiance. She sees the lengths to which US officials go to keep migrants out. The equipment they use is expensive and sophisticated. By contrast, she and her group are poor and lack specialized gear to help them cross the desert. All they have is the expertise of El Chacal. The task is as daunting as the opponents are mismatched. By spitting through the fence, Soledad is leaving a part of herself on American soil. She is not just defiant, but also victorious.

“He’s never been close to a tragedy that barbaric, never experienced a shock so primitive that it shakes him to the very core of his beliefs. In short, Nicolás has never had a fundamental change of heart. So he’s unaware of the way Newton’s third law can resonate in a place like this: for every wickedness, there is an equal and opposite possibility of redemption.” 

Nicolás warns his companions to avoid Arivaca, a border town known to be staunchly anti-immigrant. He recalls how two vigilantes murdered a nine-year-old girl and her father, hoping to stoke fear in the community by laying the blame on undocumented immigrants. El Chacal has a more nuanced view of the situation. He comes to Arivaca’s defense, recognizing that the murders led to soul searching in the town and that immigration is a complex issue for people living on the frontlines.

“They hike almost three miles without incident, and it's amazing to watch the colors leach back into the desert after the day's blanching. There's a moment, Lydia realizes, or no, more than a moment—a span of perhaps fifteen minutes just at twilight—when the desert is the most perfect place that exists. The temperature, the light, the colors, all hang and linger at some unflawed precipice, like the cars of a roller coaster ticking ever so slowly over their apex before the crash. The light droops ever farther from the sky, and Lydia can smell the heat of the day wicking away from her skin.” 

Cummins employs imagery, juxtaposition, simile, and synesthesia to bring the desert to life. Its perfect beauty contrasts sharply with the imperfection and ugliness Lydia and Luca encountered on their long journey north. Its changing colors hang like roller coaster cars before they crash. Lydia’s heightened senses allow her to smell the heat leaching from her body. Cummins transports the reader to the desert alongside the migrants, describing the setting in exquisite detail.  

“This is the moment of Lydia's crossing. Here at the back of this cave somewhere in the Tumacacori Mountains, Lydia sheds the violent skin of everything that's happened to her. It rolls down from her tingling scalp off the mantle of her shoulders and down the length of her body. She breathes it out. She spits it into the dirt. Javier. Marta. Everything. Her entire life before this moment. Every person she loved who is gone. Her monumental regret. She will leave it here.” 

The story reaches its climax when Lydia gazes down at Lorenzo’s naked corpse. Nearing the end of her terrifying journey, she finally accepts everything that has happened to her and let’s go of her old life. Lydia spent the bulk of the novel repressing her emotions to move forward for the sake of her son. Now, she releases the debilitating regret that has been weighing her down since her family’s massacre.

The story reaches its climax when Lydia gazes down at Lorenzo’s naked corpse. Nearing the end of her terrifying journey, she finally accepts everything that has happened to her and let’s go of her old life. Lydia spent the bulk of the novel repressing her emotions to move forward for the sake of her son. Now, she releases the debilitating regret that has been weighing her down since her family’s massacre.

“Javier unleashes a noise that's half sob and half laughter. He wants to plead not guilty by reason of grief. She knows grief is a kind of insanity. She knows.” 

This passage stresses Javier’s humanity, bringing the character full circle. Javier is charming, erudite, and vulnerable when the reader first encounters him in Chapter 4. Through much of the novel, however, he is the violent drug kingpin who ordered the massacre of Lydia’s family and who continues to pursue her and Luca as they race to escape to the US. In his final conversation with Lydia, Javier once again becomes human. He was driven to kill not just out of vengeance, but also out of grief. Marta was the person Javier loved most in the world. It is his grief over her death that drove him to madness and murder.