The border is a place, but it is also a metaphor: for our complicated personal identities and political allegiances, and for the moral claims made on us by those born on the other side.
On this episode, interpreter and activist Alejandra Oliva, author of Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration, speaks with Commonweal’s Claudia Avila Cosnahan about her work with asylum seekers along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Plus, in anticipation of Commonweal’s upcoming centennial, Nicole-Ann Lobo offers a short reflection on the Christian socialism of the late Dominican priest Herbert McCabe.
For further reading:
- A photo essay featuring asylum seekers in Piedras Negras
- A dispatch from Casa Alitas in Tucson
- Herbert McCabe’s essay on priesthood and revolution
“What happens at the border is unforgivable. I owe nothing to a God that might let this happen.”—Alejandra Oliva