Representing Migration

Representation is a central theme of this book, addressed in all chapters in multiple ways, and introduced here in relation to a novel which received significant backlash upon publication: Jeanine Cummins’s American Dirt (2019). Central questions concern who can and should write stories of migration and in what contexts, and the controversy surrounding the novel also raises concerns about biases of the publishing industry and the limited representation of authors from various ethnic and racial backgrounds, in this case, writers who define themselves as Latin American/Latinx. The reception of the novel is contrasted against another text, Roberto Lovato’s Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas (2020), which has been favourably received. Findings indicate that autobiographical representations of migration are seen, by critics and researchers alike, as more suitable and desirable than purely fictional stories, particularly if the writer has no personal experience of migration.