Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration - Paperback

by Alejandra Oliva (Author)

A 2023 Indie Next List Pick

A Summer/Fall 2023 Adult Indies Introduce Pick

A 2023 Roxanne Gay Audacious Book Club Pick

Winner of the 2022 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant

In this powerful and deeply felt memoir of translation, storytelling, and borders, Alejandra Oliva, a Mexican American translator and immigrant justice activist, offers a powerful chronical of her experience interpreting at the US-Mexico border.

In Rivermouth, Oliva focuses on the physical spaces that make up different phases of immigration, looking at how language and opportunity move through each of them: from the river as the waterway that separates the US and Mexico, to the table as the place over which Oliva prepares asylum seekers for their Credible Fear Interviews, and finally, to the wall as the behemoth imposition that runs along America's southernmost border.

With lush prose and perceptive insight, Oliva encourages readers to approach the painful questions that this crisis poses with equal parts critique and compassion. By which metrics are we measuring who "deserves" American citizenship? What is the point of humanitarian systems that distribute aid conditionally? What do we owe to our most disenfranchised?

As investigative and analytical as she is meditative and introspective, sharp as she is lyrical, and incisive as she is compassionate, seasoned interpreter Alejandra Oliva argues for a better world while guiding us through the suffering that makes the fight necessary and the joy that makes it worth fighting for.

Author Biography

Alejandra Oliva is an essayist, translator, immigrant justice advocate, and embroiderer. She is a recipient of the 2022 Creative Nonfiction Whiting Grant. Her writing has been included in Best American Travel Writing 2020, was nominated for a Pushcart prize, and was honored with an Aspen Summer Words Emerging Writers Fellowship. She was the Frankie Fellow at the Yale Whitney Hummanities Center in 2022. Read more at olivalejandra.com