If you’ve been in a coma the last few weeks of January 2020, then you may have missed the release of American Dirt (Jeanine Cummins, Flatiron Books/ MacMillan, 2020, New York), its synchronous pick for “Oprah’s Book Club,” and the immediate backlash against the author and publisher, as well as Oprah Winfrey, and basically against the entire publishing industry. Two issues were illuminated: First, the claim from certain spokespeople for the Latino community that the Latino voice was grossly misrepresented in the book, written by a “white woman” who they say had no right to speak for them, who stole their identity, and whose publisher made inexcusable errors in both the edit and marketing of the book. I read the book and wrote about this issue, and my take on it, here in an article titled, "STOP hating on American Dirt - PART I [Spoiler alert: I don’t entirely disagree, but I still devoured and liked the book.] Second, the assertion that the publishing industry as a