ENG1141
Creative Writing
Formal Critique
Reviewer’s Name: Nickay Green
Title of Piece: Pendeja, You Ain’t Steinbeck: My Bronca with Fake-Ass Social Justice Literature
Author’s Name: Myriam Gurba
Plot: From the beginning to the end of the story the author talks about her distaste for a book written by Jeanine Cummins “American Dirt”, which she believes is a poor representation of Mexican pain and their culture in general. The author starts by explaining why she thinks the book was garbage, then move on to discuss the inconsistency in the cultural representation in the book about Mexicans and their culture. Her opinion about the book never wavered and was consistent throughout her writing.
Characters: Gurba seems passionate about her take on the book “Dirt” and was very expressive about why she thinks Cummins was not qualified to write the book in the first place. Based on her word choice and her stance, it is clear that Gurba was personally offended not only by the poor representation on Mexican culture but also by the fact that the author was someone who could not possibly relate to the group of people she was writing about because they are from two different worlds so to speak.
Question: Would you feel the same way if Dirt was written by a Mexcian author?
Point of View: The author uses her own POV which works fine since this was about her personal feelings towards Cummins’s book.
Setting & Context: The story starts to take form when Guro introduces the arrival of Dirt in her mailbox while she was at her tía’s house in Guadalajara at the beginning of her story. She then moves the story to the kitchen table of her home in Alta California where she starts writing her review on the book.
Voice & Style: The author was clear, passionate about the topic, and was very expressive and straight to the point. I like how her tone changes throughout her writing to match how she felt in each given moment (disgusted, disappointed, angry, calm). Each paragraph she wrote was just full of emotions that make it so much more enjoyable to read. I like how she transition from Spanish to English without getting her readers confused.
Question: Do you feel that it is a cultural rip-off for people to write about other cultures that they themself have never personally experienced?
Dialogue: The author used dialogue throughout her writhing to share her thoughts out loud, as well as sharing conversations she had with other people. I like how she would express herself in Spanish and then go on the translate so her readers who do not speak Spanish don’t get confused.
I like it when she added “Pendeja, please”, as a means of expressing her distaste for Cummins writing.
I agree with you when you said that Gurba stayed consistent with her opinion throughout the piece and used supportive examples and other stories to support this. In regards to your question, cultural appropriation and speaking (in this case writing) about a culture that isn’t your own is a very sensitive case. In Cummin’s case, she wanted to give a “face” to the “faceless” but was it hers to give? Speaking or writing about these things is something that needs to be fully thought through. Now if Cummin spoke about how American’s have advantage in the United Sates compared to Mexicans and brought research based facts the maybe it would be a different story. What do you think?
Hi Nickay, I liked the way you expressed your thoughts and I could not agree more with your character’s explanation when you said that Gurba was offended not only by the poor representation of the Mexican culture but by the fact that Cummins could not relate to them. I think it would have been better if she had written the story letting the audience know that it was from the perspective of an American and the way they see Mexicans.