THERE ARE PARTS OF THE RIO GRANDE so shallow you could walk across them without even getting your knees wet. Other parts of the river are so deep, their currents so strong, that people get swept away. Rivers are like this: sometimes calm, sometimes treacherous, always in flux. The Rio Grande is a life-giving entity; its waters are diverted to irrigate farms whose crops feed people across the country. But those same waters are weaponized against those who, shut out of opportunities to legally migrate to the United States, attempt desperately to swim to the other side.
The fact that there are two names for the river underscores its dual nature. In El Paso, Laredo, Eagle Pass, and Brownsville, it’s the Rio Grande. But just across the border, in Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo, Piedras Negras, and Matamoros, it’s the Rio Bravo. “‘Bravo,’ when applied to a body of water, means white caps, waves, danger,” Alejandra Oliva writes in her debut memoir Rivermouth. “It is the same word you use to describe an angry bull, or someone courageous, or like a bull, so angry, they’re brave.” One must be brave to cross the angry river, the dangerous body of water that separates Mexico and the United States. But we don’t have to worry about such things; to us, it’s just big.
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