At the River

Esteban Rodriguez's At the River asks what it means to live on the border, and how one can come to terms with the symbolic weight of crossing between two worlds. Combining sharp prose, poetic insight, and a series of incisive black-and-white photographs, At the River journeys to the U.S.-Mexican border in deep south Texas, where our narrator, under his grandmother's watchful eye, contemplates the geography, people, and cultural characteristics that define the region. Over the course of an afternoon, as we cross from one country to the next, we come face to face with fatigued security guards, desperate children, eager vendors, ominous receptionists, and a whole range of characters that mimic that indifference and uncertainty that defines this corner of the earth. In Rodríguez's tender and often humorous style, questions arise about identity, economic privilege, race, the nature of language and silence, and the ways in which belonging becomes more than just the name you were born with. At the River asks not only what it means to live on the border, but how one can come to terms with the symbolic weight of crossing between two worlds.