Review: "My Side of the River" by Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez

My Side of the River by Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez
Published February 2024 via St. Martin's Press
★★★★

They both knew from experience that the world simply wouldn't favor a brown uneducated Mexican girl. They knew how much of an advantage a good American education would be for their American daughter. They wanted the best for me. (loc. 133*)

Growing up in Arizona, Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez knew that her parents worked themselves to the bone and struggled to get by—she lived it too. But it wasn't until she was a teenager that things changed irrevocably: her parents were denied visa renewals, and they couldn't get back into the US. With an American birth certificate and American passport, she could stay to get the education and future her parents wanted so desperately for her...but she'd have to do it alone.

Before I even understood the concept of citizenship, I knew I was protected in a way that they weren't. They were always aware of authority figures, making themselves smaller around cops and the law, hiding—something I didn't feel the need to do. "If you every feel unsafe, go to the police," my parents instructed. Unlike them, I didn't need to hide. (loc. 184)

And so Camarillo Gutierrez became homeless and parentless, because none of the options for the present were good but this would at least give her a better chance for the future. It's worth noting that these are decisions that most Americans don't have to make—one might have to decide which divorced parent to live with, or whether or not to go to boarding school, but far less often to stay where one's parents cannot follow or to figure out everything from housing to food alone because of this. It's a devastating situation to consider, and one that Camarillo Gutierrez describes with precision and clear eyes.

I won't say too much about where this journey took her (read the book to find out), but I found the earlier parts of the book, as Camarillo Gutierrez was getting through primary and secondary school, to be most compelling. I think that's partly because some of her later experiences are ones I've heard before, in various forms—not to suggest that they aren't worth hearing again, but...there's something particularly visceral about a child knowing that their parents cannot come if they are needed, no matter how desperately they want to. Too, I think the focus gets diluted somewhat—the earlier parts of the book cover some broader racism and xenophobia but narrow in on the ways that certain laws and government policies continue to fail citizens like Camarillo Gutierrez; later that expands again to the more general racism that Camarillo Gutierrez was (is) up against as a brown woman in places where white voices dominate. I can't fault her for including that very valid part of her story, but it's the earlier parts that will stick with me.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.