Rivermouth : a chronicle of language, faith, and migration / Alejandra Oliva.
Material type:
TextPublisher: New York : Astra House, [2023]Edition: First editionDescription: 297 pages ; 24 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781662601699
- 1662601697
- Immigrants -- United States -- Social conditions
- Political refugees -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- United States
- Spanish Americans (Latin America) -- United States
- Translating and interpreting
- United States -- Emigration and immigration -- Government policy
- United States -- Emigration and immigration -- Political aspects
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Main Library | NonFiction | 305.9069 O48 | Available | 33111011299357 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Best Nonfiction of 2023 - Kirkus
"One of the most thoughtful meditations on our nation's immigration policy in recent memory." --The Boston Globe
A chronicle of translation, storytelling, and borders as understood through the United States' "immigration crisis"
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.
Having worked with asylum seekers since 2016, she knows all too well the gravity of taking someone's trauma and delivering it to the warped demands of the U.S. immigration system. As Oliva's stunning prose recounts the stories of the people she's met through her work, she also traces her family's long and fluid relationship to the border--each generation born on opposite sides of the Rio Grande.
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 U.S. 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.
Includes bibliographical references.
"Rivermouth is a polemic arguing for porous borders, a decriminalization of immigration, a more open sense of what we owe one another, and a willingness to extend radical empathy"-- Provided by publisher.
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 chronicle of her experience interpreting at the US-Mexico border. Having worked with asylum seekers since 2016, she knows all too well the gravity of taking someone's trauma and delivering it to the warped demands of the U.S. immigration system. As Oliva's stunning prose recounts the stories of the people she's met through her work, she also traces her family's long and fluid relationship to the border--each generation born on opposite sides of the Rio Grande.