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For Alejandra Oliva, translation is fluid. In “Rivermouth,” her personal and at times harrowing new book on migration, she explores the idea that a translator — as she has been — builds bridges between cultures. But also that the act of translating, like a moving river, changes constantly — and changes the people involved.
“Translation builds bridges,” said the debut author. “But there are other ways you can spend time in that river without crossing it. People can occupy space that is neither English nor Spanish.”
This is a world Oliva has immersed herself in: Although “Rivermouth” is arranged thematically rather than chronologically, it covers her experiences volunteering with an asylum clinic in New York in 2017 and with asylum seekers in Tijuana, Mexico, in January 2019, during her winter break from Harvard Divinity School.
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The book’s structure derives from its origins “as a series of essays that I was writing as class assignments in divinity school,” explained Oliva. Whether contemplating food for a class on the Eucharist, which led to analyses of immigrants’ roles in poultry processing, or directly about her experience in Tijuana, she described “feeling like I was having the same conversation across these different classes.”
Throughout, Oliva is unsparing with the tales of relentless bureaucracy and casual cruelty she encountered. She is also uncompromising about her own role. “Translation can be a safer place to exist because the only thing you have to give of yourself is your language skills,” she explained. “You don’t really have to decide how to respond to this person who is in crisis.”
However, her work also meant hours sitting with brutalized people. “Nothing traumatizing has specifically happened to you, but you are still aware of all this trauma in the world, and your body can respond to it,” she said. This led to another of the book’s themes: secondhand trauma.
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To illustrate how broken our current immigration system is, Oliva framed her volunteer experiences against the history of her own family, which repeatedly and seamlessly crossed the US-Mexico border. “We are prey to this idea that all immigrants have the same opportunities,” said Oliva. “I wanted to show the differences between my own family’s experiences and that of the people I was encountering.”
Ultimately, these stories add up to a call to acknowledge our shared humanity, seeking “a future in which we treat people as people even as they’re going through the immigration system,” she said.
Alejandra Oliva will be discussing “Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration” with Ellen Elias-Bursac at Brookline Booksmith on Thursday, June 29, at 7 p.m.
Clea Simon is the Somerville-based author most recently of the novel “Hold Me Down.”