I tried to tell my border story. Here is what book agents told me, before and after American Dirt
Editor’s Note
Laura Peña has a story to tell: She is a former prosecutor for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She now defends would-be immigrants in court, where she used to augur for their confinement and deportation. This brief introduction ought to enough to perk up ears in the mainstream publishing business, right?
Instead, just before and after the debut of American Dirt, she experienced what is too often the dismissive manner in which mainstream publishers deal with upstart writers and non-traditional storytellers.
Non-celebrities should not expect a pass from publishers when it comes to writing ability. Good writing goes a long way. But when someone comes in with a compelling story, one that could attract a significant new audience to a stagnant market, it behooves publishers to secure that story and mentor the writer. Yes, that happens in publishing, just not often enough to writers and journalists of color, regardless of the potential power of their stories.
Let her words here sink in. This essay on her early experience in the publishing world – a version of which first appeared on her page on Medium.com – says a lot about the destructive barriers that most emerging writers run into when they try to reach mass audiences, even those who have “can’t miss” stories.
- Ricardo Sandoval-Palos
There are so many real-life stories that could illustrate the human-rights disaster on our southern border. One of them is mine: How I went from ICE prosecutor to defending immigrants. Who should decide how my story is told?
By Laura Peña
Hi. My name is Laura.
For two years, I deported immigrants as an attorney for ICE, the federal government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. I left that agency after one harrowing asylum case led me to realize that the system deprived unrepresented migrants of their constitutional rights to fair hearings and due process. I later denounced my former agency and “switched sides.” I became an attorney advocating for immigrant rights and moved back home to the U.S.-Texas border, where I was born.
I had lived far from the border for 18 years, and I wanted to come back. I wanted to help reunify migrant families separated at the hands of the government I used to serve. I continue that work today, and it continues to be a privilege.
Naturally, there are some people who have reservations about my story and my motive. One Dreamer recently posed the question to me, “You’ve separated immigrant families, and now you’re helping them? Why should anyone trust you?”
Great question. The answer, like many things in life, is quite painful and complex.
That Dreamer’s question has stayed with me. I’ve explored it by delving into writing about my experience as an immigration prosecutor charged with deporting human beings to countries where they may be killed. I worked in a system that Immigration Judge Dana Leigh Marks once described as “death penalty cases in a traffic court setting.” It’s a perfect analogy.
Two summers ago, I threw myself into the middle of the family separation crisis, which for U.S. Customs and Border Protection turned into a crisis of inhumane overcrowding, which then turned into a humanitarian crisis with the return of asylum seekers to Mexico, which then turned into asylum seekers being immediately deported to the dangerous regions from which they fled.
In the middle of this madness, I hired a book coach. I spent my savings on a stranger I found online who gave me homework and reviewed my writing for a period of time. The result? A basic book proposal. It wasn’t Pulitzer prize writing. But I was living through some difficult experiences while writing about them. It was a bit raw, I’m sure, and clinical at times. I was, after all, reliving the trauma of my experience. My book coach told me (maybe because I paid her) that I should have “no problem” getting my proposal picked up. “You’ve seen both sides of the issue,” she said. I guess not many people have been in the belly of the beast, gotten out, and then turned around to fight it. Although I am certainly not the first former-ICE attorney, I certainly have made a deliberate shift to call out the atrocities committed under the current Administration.
I got lucky. Not one, not two, but THREE agents actually read my proposal. Most proposals don’t even get one read. The only reason mine got picked up at all is because of #browngirlmagic and the opening of doors by other sisters of color with privilege. (You know who you are.)
Given my own journey trying to crack the nut of the publishing world with a compelling border story, I have been following the American Dirt controversy with a range of emotional reactions — depression, shock, sick glee (cat fight!), and ultimately hope. Yes, hope, because I see there’s a craving for authentic stories that shed light on one of the most divisive and horrific human-rights issues in recent U.S. history.
But even before the American Dirt controversy exploded, I had already run into brick walls in publishing that seem to impede unknown writers, especially of color, even if they have one hell of a story to tell.
Below is a summary of the reactions I received from the three agents; three men and two from the New York publishing world:
Agent 1. First, I want to say this conversation was super helpful, as depressing as it was. In short, he shared with me that in his opinion a very small advance could be secured for my story. The market, he thought, isn’t too hungry for these types of stories from first-time authors without notoriety. (Remember, this was before American Dirt.) At the end of the conversation, I realized that I needed to be able to save enough money to quit my job and write full time without any advance at all. I thanked him for his honesty.
Agent 2. He said he saw potential in my proposal! But my writing sucks. (Does it? You tell me, honestly.) He recommended spending thousands of dollars with a writing coach to get my proposal into shape. Also, he said, I needed to follow one narrative — just one family that was separated and delve into that journey. Apparently, I thought, nobody really cared about the other aspects of my journey. Sure, he said, I could fold in other things, but really focus on family separations. That will sell.
My stomach got queasy thinking of overly exposing just one family.
Agent 3. I spoke with Agent 3 before Agents 1 and 2. He was very excited, and sounded “all in.” He read the proposal the night he got it, and responded immediately. He had nothing too concrete to say, other than he was horrified by what was happening at the border — and that he wanted to do something about it. Me, in my naivete, didn’t immediately take him up on his offer. I didn’t strike while the iron was hot, mainly because I didn’t know this man. Also, it was my first conversation with an agent, and it seemed…well, too good to be true. I called him again after Agents 1 and 2 and shared with him their feedback. I also shared with him my honest hesitancy to move forward telling my story, and my fear that maybe nobody cares. We agreed: he would re-read my proposal and get back to me.
Two weeks later, American Dirt made headlines, and after that, Agent 3 politely decided to step aside to not add to the “onslaught” of advice I’ve received from others.
I’m still processing his selection of words. I believe I was being honest and reasonable with him about speaking with a couple of other potential partners. Yes, I pushed him to make sure he was still “all in.” But, an “onslaught” of advice? Perhaps he was projecting. I was left wondering if, perhaps, he didn’t want to jump into an issue that had dropped an onslaught of ire on so many connected to American Dirt and Macmillan Publishers.
I guess I found out.
Do Latinx writers have a harder time getting published? Sure. Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez writes in her blog about her tough time getting Dirty Girls Social Club published in part because it failed to conform with a specific portrayal of latinidad. Luis Alberto Urrea, a proclaimed “literary badass,” talks with journalist Maria Hinojosa on Latino USA about his difficulty getting his first book published because nobody cared about starving Mexicans.
Well, fuck it.
I am going to write. For now I will write on my own blog on Medium. (You can find it at this link.)
I’ll share my old writing. I’ll share current work. I’ll try to open up my world to you.
Here are some examples: One week I recounted how I spent countless hours trying to figure out how to get some of my clients married on an international bridge — another attempt to combat family separations that stem from the White House’s Remain in Mexico program. In another emotional moment, I finally reconnected, over WhatsApp video, with a former client who had been deported to Guatemala. I cried, apologizing to her for not being able to stop authorities from deporting her and her sick children. She let me cry, and ultimately, she forgave me. She knew I did everything I could to stop the deportation.
I want to write these stories. I want to help bridge the massive divide on the issue of immigration.
If you are shouting “Build the Wall,” or “Abolish ICE,” or silently watch those chanters from afar, I hope you will read my stories. I just ask that you read with an open mind and a kind heart. The world is simultaneously an ugly and joyful place — I hope to explore the ugly and share the joy.
Thanks for reading.
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Laura Pena is an immigration lawyer. She used to be an attorney for ICE, and once deported migrants. She has an amazing story to tell. Instead, her story today is about how she's been treated amid the American Dirt controversy by a publishing business with a lousy history of fostering literary voices from among emerging writers of color with great stories to tell.