Rivermouth

A Chronicle of Language, Faith and Migration

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A Summer/Fall 2023 Adult Indies Introduce Pick | A 2023 Roxanne Gay Audacious Book Club Pick

Winner of the 2022 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant

A chronicle of translation, storytelling, and borders as understood through the United States' “immigration crisis”

In this powerful and deeply felt polemic memoir, Alejandra Oliva, a Mexican-American translator and immigrant justice activist, offers a chronological document of her experience interpreting at the US-Mexico border, and of the people she has encountered along the way. Tracing her family’s long and fluid relationship to the border, each generation born on opposite sides of the Rio Grande, and having worked on asylum cases since 2016, she knows all too well the gravity of taking someone's trauma and delivering it to the warped demands of the American immigration system.

In Rivermouth, Oliva focuses on the physical spaces that make up different phases of immigration and looks 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, in Rivermouth, 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.

Praise for Rivermouth:

"Amazing... a beautiful conversation about what immigration and migration looks like but also how we come to understand it, whose stories we get to hear and how." —Traci Thomas, NPR's Here & Now

"I am fascinated by translation both in theory and practice and it is translation that serves as the foundation of this excellent book that is about borders, and migration and how migration experiences can be so different. It’s part memoir of growing up as the child of immigrants while working with migrants seeking asylum and harbor in the US. Oliva has prescient and deeply intelligent ideas throughout. It’s always a pleasure to see an excellent mind at work." —Roxane Gay

“A timely book by a translator at America’s southern border, Rivermouth is one of the most thoughtful meditations on our nation’s immigration policy in recent memory. Oliva’s Kafkaesque portrayal of her work retelling the traumatic stories of migrants in English for asylum applications will linger long after you’re done reading." —The Boston Globe

"A graceful meditation on the unresolved traumas of life in a land where one is often not welcome . . . Evenhandedly and without sentimentality, Oliva urges that we can stand to be both more understanding and more generous." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Oliva’s excellent debut recounts her experiences volunteering as a Spanish-English translator in an immigration detention center at the U.S.-Mexico border beginning in 2016. . . With uncut rage and breathtaking prose, Oliva edifies, infuriates, and moves readers all at once. This is required reading. “ —Publishers Weekly, (starred review)

“Subtle, personal, and deeply informative, this is one of those books that catapult you to a place you have never been. Translation is the author’s vocation as well as a metaphor for the in-between spaces that her personal and professional identities compel her to traverse. Alejandra Oliva stands at a literal border and contemplates the metaphorical borderlines language creates, in terms of both the immigrant crisis and her own identity as a bilingual Mexican-American. Driven by a fierce sense of social justice, she is also an exquisitely controlled journalist. Her candid, intimate voice is irresistible.” -Whiting Nonfiction Grant Jury

"Mexican-American translator and immigrant justice activist Alejandra Oliva is particularly situated to tell the stories of immigration at the US southern border. She has seen the suffering, the space and the struggles of the people firsthand as she interprets their words for them and now, their experiences for us." —Karla J. Strand, Ms. Magazine

"Undeterred by complexity, Oliva presents an accessible narrative electrified by transcripts of official exchanges, raw with emotion, that lay bare the tragic inadequacy of a sterile bureaucratic setting to ever do justice to petitioners in any "credible threat interview." —Sara Martinez, Booklist

“Rather than providing fodder for sensationalistic news stories, the US southern border immigration crisis demands serious attention and reform. Activist Oliva offers up her experience and skills to assist desperate people in preparing for their credible fear interviews, as well as for myriad other hoops. Rivermouth offers an extremely compelling combination of memoir, study of translation, and overall examination of the immigration process.” —Beth Shapiro, Skylark Bookshop, Columbia, MO | Indies Introduce

“Rivermouth is an emotional, informative exploration of the American immigrant and asylum systems told through the lens of the author’s experience serving as a translator at the US-Mexico border. Alejandra Oliva brings such compassion and insight to the ‘immigration crisis’ while never losing focus on the humanity of the people who get caught in the incredibly complex bureaucracy of it all. This is an incredible addition to the literary narrative nonfiction landscape and is sure to appeal to fans of The Undocumented Americans.” —Christine Bollow, Loyalty Bookstores, Washington, DC | Indies Introduce

“In Rivermouth, the important topic of immigration is addressed through compassionate and beautiful prose, in short digestible bursts, with a translator’s thoughtful and precise eye. Rivermouth examines the immigrant journey from beginning to end: the border, the application process, the final court decision of who may stay and who gets deported. It is a personal, human centric account of our system, how broken it is, and how it fails us all. The author, herself Mexican-American, bilingual, with a foot planted in two worlds, is ideally suited to frame the discussion.” —Alana Haley, Schuyler’s Books, Grand Rapids, MI | Indies Introduce

“The United States immigration policy is so messed up, antiquated, and deliberately discriminatory to the millions of humans that cross its borders everyday. In hopes of a better livelihood, they risk their lives and leave their homes behind. Yet it continues to exist unfazed, unchecked, and leaving those of us on the other side divided and jaded. In Rivermouth, Oliva demonstrates the extraordinary gift of language and translation, how it can expand our understanding of human connection, and why we need to address this crisis now.” —Thu Doan, East Bay Booksellers, Oakland, CA | Indies Introduce 

For media inquiries related to RIVERMOUTH, please contact: Rachael Small | Astra House Books | rsmall@astrapublishinghouse.com